Assassination Classroom: Land of the dragons
by Shiro no Ken
Summary: Four tribes that used to rule the land, four tribes that are the legacy of the four elemental dragons. What will happen after their downfall and humanity take start to take control? Using Assassination Classroom Characters in a world I created myself, the characters have nothing to do with the original story except for their appearance and personality.
1. Chapter 0

"Urgh..." a rather young boy with sky blue hair groaned while slowly opening his eyes. His eyes had a similar color as his hair, but they were slightly darker, like the ocean.

"Hey boss, it woke up!" the boy could hear a voice shout. Also, he was laying on something hard and it was shaking the entire time. He could also hear the sound of rolling wheels.

"Keep it in the cage, you're sure that the chains are on it?" A really deep voice replied to the first one, probably the boss the first one was referring as.

 _\- Cage? Chains? Are they talking about me? -_

The boy finally gathers his strength and sat up. The back of his head hurtled like hell. And when he tried to touch it he could feel the dried blood in his hair. There were huge iron balls chained to both his legs and he was being kept in a cage that was being pulled by horses.

The boy finally remembered what happened when he looked at his own hand. There was a scale on the back of his right hand, a light blue one to be specific.

The boy was a member of the water dragon tribe, a mysterious tribe that used to be seen as deities by humans. They were the legacy of the 4 elemental dragons being water, earth, wind and fire. The 4 tribes used to be huge and powerful, but there was one problem, the lack of prosperity.

While being the legacy of the dragons gave them strength and power, the birth rate within the tribes were extremely low. So the time came when humans reproduced so fast that they started to push the 4 tribes out of their land and eventually dominated the land.

But that wasn't all, humanity started to seek control over the four tribes, they wished to find a way to obtain the powers of the tribes and started kidnapping the already few offsprings the tribes had.

Shiota Nagisa was one of them. He was a member of the water tribe, just got 10 years old a few days ago. His parents died soon after he was born so he was living with his aunt who didn't really cared about him.

Ever since the humans turned on the tribes, the tribes pulled back into deepest forest and protected themselves with a barrier, not as a whole, but still as four separated tribes. The tribes were too proud to fuse with each other and that was a huge reason for their downfall at the first place.

Usually tribe members are not allowed to leave the barrier, but Nagisa broke the rule after he got into a huge fight with his aunt on his birthday. And of course, he got caught. "Haaa, i messed up." Nagisa sighed and looked into the sky.

Dragons only gain their powers through time and training, a young dragon is no different than a human child with the exception of the scale on their hand.

Nagisa let out a slight sigh of relieve when he saw that all his cloth and the glove on his left hand was still there.

Nagisa was different since the day he was born. While a normal dragon only had a scale on their right hand, Nagisa had a scale on both his hands. A light blue one on his right which was the mark of a water dragon, and a grey one on his left. For as long as he could remember, he was wearing a black leather gloves on his left hand being told to hide it from other people, even his own tribe members.

His aunt never told him why he had a second scale and to be honest, Nagisa doubted that she knew the reason in the first place.

Nagisa took a deep breath to calm himself down. There were only a few occasions where a kidnapped dragon managed to escape back to the tribe, but at least there were a few.

Nagisa was more nature than any other 10 year old kid despite his slightly shy personality. He had been on his own since he could remember.

New born dragons always get trough a ritual that determines their compatibility with the water element. And Nagisa had hit a new low in the entire history of the tribe. The results of the ritual were so low that some even doubted if he really was a water dragon if it weren't for the scale on his hand.

So even the kids from his tribe were isolating him since his birth. Heck, the entire tribe was isolating him!

Strangely enough, Nagisa was mastering everything that he was taught in an immense speed, faster than anyone else his age which was clearly contradicting the results of the ritual. Nagisa concluded that the results must have been altered because of his mysterious second scale. But sadly, as soon as the tribe realized that, they all stopped to teach him anything new.

Already having a rough plan in mind, Nagisa started to gather the moisture in the air onto the chains that were on his legs. Even though Nagisa was still pretty much a newborn, he was still able to slightly manipulate the water element.

The ride continued for another 4 days and the people guarding the cage would occasionally throw in some dried bread that was hard as stone for Nagisa to eat.

On the 4th day they have finally arrived at their base. It was like a huge underground prison where they kept all different kinds of people or creatures.

"Hmm, looks like you guys caught something, what is it?" The guard at the entrance asked the man that was referred as boss in the group that captured Nagisa.

"Heh, hit the jackpot this month, got a lil water dragon." The man with the extremely deep voice bragged.

"Oh really? That makes two dragons this month! Our Lord will be pleased." The guard smiled and nodded while letting the group in. Put it in the same cell as the other dragon, number 22 don't get it wrong." The guard told the group as they were passing by.

"Gotcha! Maybe we'll get a month off next month, haha!" The "boss" waved at the guard as he laughed out loud.

* * *

"Urgh!" Nagisa grunted when he was thrown into the cell and crashed into the ground. The extra weight from the iron balls on his legs made the fall twice as painful.

"You'll have to work here as a slave before we find a buyer so don't try anything stupid!" Warned the man who threw Nagisa in here. "And you're the other dragon here huh?" The man walked towards a small figure in the corner.

"Ihhh!" The figure in the corner shrieked as the man approached it and started to shiver.

"Uhh, not bad not bad, aren't you a cutie, bet you'll sell for a nice price." The man started to laugh as he forced the figure in the corner to lift its face by grabbing it by its hair and pulling it out of the shadow.

"Ahhhh!" That's when Nagisa also managed to see the figure. It was a small girl, probably around the same age as Nagisa. She had green hair and beautiful hazel eyes. But they were filled with terror and tears at the moment while she was screaming out of pain because the man was pulling her by her hair. Don't forget that she also had these iron balls on her legs and that made it so much more painful.

Simply the sight of this made Nagisa angry, he was prepared to be humiliated here, but the way the man had fun while torturing that girl made Nagisa snap. "You scum!" Nagisa yelled while charging towards the man and biting his arms as hard as he could.

"OW!" The man let go of the girl and shook Nagisa from his arm and onto the ground, "why you little bastard!" The man cursed as he started to kick Nagisa who was desperately trying to defend himself while being kicked several times.

"Tch, fucking animal." The man looked at Nagisa who was laying in a corner with a disgusted look and locked the cell before leaving.

"Keh..." Nagisa coughed and grasped for air while holding his stomach with his face twisted together out of the pain.

"A-are you okay?" Nagisa heard the girl asking him while she was giving her best to crawl towards him.

Nagisa wanted to answer, but the pain was hindering him from bringing any word out of his mouth. But when the girl finally reached him, he suddenly started to feel how the pain on his stomach was slowly getting better.

It only took 5 minutes and the pain was barely there anymore, "how did you do that?" Nagisa looked at the girl completely surprised. Now that she was right in front of him, he could see what the man was on about.

The girl had beautiful long green hair, a pair of pure and large hazel eyes und smooth and white skin. On top of that, she really looked adorable.

"I-I learned some basics of healing magic..." the girl shrugged back as soon as Nagisa started to move but still answered.

"Hmm, thank you." Nagisa said while still touching his own stomach in disbelieve. This was the first time he had someone cast magic on himself.

"No... thank you... he wouldn't have beaten you it you didn't try to help me..." the girl took a deep breath and said.

"Maybe, but I couldn't just sit there and just watch." Nagisa thought about it and answered before pulling himself into a corner and away from the girl. He was not really used to talk to other people.

"Uhmm, I'm Kaede... from the wind tribe." The little girl introduced herself.

"Well I can see that." Nagisa laughed and pointed at her green hair, "Nagisa, water tribe if it's not obvious. Nice to meet you Kaede... well actually never mind, meeting you here isn't really a good thing." Nagisa sighed and checked out the cell.

"You're probably right..." The tiny little bit of Kaede's good mood disappeared after Nagisa's comment.

"Well, at least you don't have to be in this cell alone anymore, right?" Nagisa felt slightly guilty for making her sad again and tried to cheer her up.

"Yeah!" To his surprise Kaede seemed really happy about that, like way more than he expected. He was used to people being annoyed by his presence.

 **Well, this is the story I was planning on writing after I finish "Last Assassination" but I wasn't sure if people will actually like the concept of this story. This will be a mix of adventure, action, leveling-up and of course romance.**

 **Tell me if you like the general idea of the story and if you wish to see more or not. If you don't like the idea I'll start working on another one.**

 **But anyways, even if you decide that you like this, I'll only start updating after I'm done with "Last Assassination".**

 **And for now, I'm off to my parents and I'll see you all in three weeks ;) bye!**


	2. Chapter 1

"Hey you, new boy! Number 207!" A high pitched voice reached Nagisa's ears. He really didn't like the sound, but he had no other choice.

"Yes sir!"' Nagisa placed down the crystals that he was carrying and replied to the owner of the voice. "What is it, sir?" Nagisa tried to sound as respectful as he could so that the disgust he felt inside wouldn't show.

"You're a pretty hard worker eh?" This man had been in charge of the cells from number 20-29 ever since Nagisa arrived. Well, to be fair it has only been a week. Nagisa and Kaede were in cell number 22 and therefore under his charge.

"Thank you, sir," Nagisa said instead of going into his question. He tried to keep the conversations short since he wasn't confident that he won't say anything suspicious without him realizing.

"Good, keep up the work." The man nodded and sent Nagisa off.

"Thank you, sir," Nagisa said again and went back to his cart of crystals to deliver them.

When he was brought back to his cell, Kaede was already there. "Hey." Kaede greeted him with a weak smile, she seemed really worn out. The guard left after reattaching the iron balls back to Nagisa's legs.

"Hey." Nagisa smiled back and sat down next to her, "hard day?" Nagisa asked her since she shouldn't be this exhausted.

"Hmm, not really, every day has been like this." Kaede thought about it for a second and shook her head.

"I've noticed... but how come?" Nagisa was slightly confused. He was exhausted as well, but Kaede looked like she would collapse any second.

"It's been fine at first..." Kaede wanted to reply, but she was a little bit too exhausted to talk.

"Hmm, rest for a bit, we can talk later." Nagisa realized Kaede's bad condition and said. He then placed her and his blanket over her. Her tiny body was shivering and Nagisa didn't really need his blanket now.

"..." Kaede seemed really surprised when Nagisa did that and stared at him for a second before her eyes gave in and closed themselves.

Nagisa simply smiled at her and turned around. They have talked quite a lot in the past week and Nagisa did quite like her. Since they still had quite some time till dinner, Nagisa decided to close his eyes as well.

* * *

"Hey, Nagisa." A soft voice and a light tap on his shoulder made Nagisa open his eyes again. He's been counting the time while he had his eyes closed, it's been a bit more than one and a half hours.

"How are you feeling?" Nagisa asked while turning towards her.

"Way better, thank you... for the blanket." Kaede blushed a little while holding Nagisa's blanket towards him.

"It's nothing," Nagisa said taking the blanket out of her hands. "So, how come you're always so exhausted?"

"I'm not really good at mining. It takes me an hour to get one crystal..." Kaede said with a rather sad expression. "And it's getting worse and worse, I used to be able to get one in half an hour."

Nagisa spaced out for a second hearing what she said and looked at his right hand. There were already blisters on it, if he kept up working like this he would slow down eventually as well. "How long have you been here?" Nagisa suddenly remembered.

"Not sure anymore... I guess about four weeks?" Kaede answered while her eyes looked even sadder.

While they both got captured in the same month, Kaede was caught right at the beginning of the month and Nagisa at the end.

"Hmm..." Nagisa hesitated for a second and just hummed. Her sad face made him want to promise to get her out of here, but he couldn't trust her completely yet. "Can I see your hands?" Nagisa asked out of curiosity.

"Huh?" Kaede was clearly caught off guard by the sudden change of topic, "w-why?" She eyed Nagisa with caution as she guarded her hands with her body.

"Sorry, I'm not trying to be rude. I'm already getting blisters after the first week, so I thought maybe I could help you somehow." Nagisa scratched the back of his head and explained.

"Oh... my hands are fine." Kaede said after showing Nagisa her hands, "remember? I learned some basics of healing magic... ... ...oh god! I completely forgot to ask you because I got used to it, if you want I can heal your hands too, I'm so sorry!" She offered with a shocked and apologetic expression.

"That would be great, but does it drain a lot of your stamina?" Nagisa asked her. Now he was completely confused why she would slow down with time if she could heal herself.

"No, it only takes mana from my mana pool." Kaede explained, "you've never learned magic?" She was slightly surprised.

"Ha... nobody would teach me." Nagisa said in a slightly self-mocking way, "All I learned was element control." Nagisa lifted his hand and showed Kaede how a small water pearl started to form in his hand as he drained the water from the air.

"How!" But to Nagisa's surprise, Kaede's was really impressed or rather shocked that he was able to do that, "water dragons aren't supposed to be able to do that before they reach the second stage!"

"Second stage?" It was the first time Nagisa heard of that, "what's that?"

"You don't know?" Kaede's was even more shocked, "dragons can raise their mana pool through meditating, and there are 9 stages with 9 levels each for that." Kaede explained.

"Ehh? Never heard of that." Nagisa just looked at Kaede completely dumbfounded.

"..." Kaede looked at Nagisa like looking at an alien, "your parents were supposed to teach you that when you got 6." Kaede said in disbelieve.

"..." Nagisa's expression instantly darkened after hearing that, "yeah... that explains a lot." Nagisa sighed.

"Hmm? What is it?" Kaede looked at Nagisa being slightly confused.

"Nothing." Nagisa just shook his head, "but yeah, nobody has ever taught me that." He didn't really want to talk about his parents

"Hmm, want me to teach you?" Kaede asked after thinking for a second, "I was actually quite an honor student back at the tribe." She said with a proud but at the same time sad expression.

"You would?" Nagisa asked her, being a little bit surprised, "yeah, that'd be great!"

"Sure!" Kaede replied with a sweet smile, "but let me heal your hands first." She said while taking Nagisa's right hand and closing her eyes.

Nagisa couldn't see her the last time she healed him, as she closed her eyes and started to concentrate, the scale on her hand started to glow making it look like an emerald.

And then the blisters and wounds on his hand started to disappear at a noticeable speed. "Wow." Nagisa looked at his hand and clenched it into a fist a few times, "this is amazing!".

"Not really but thanks." Kaede smiled as she wanted to take his other hand, "like I said, it's only the basics."

"Oh, this one is fine." Nagisa quickly pulled his hand back, "I'm wearing a glove on this one, see?" Nagisa said as he showed her his other hand.

"Are you sure? You might still get blisters even with a glove." Kaede asked him a little worried.

"It's fine, thanks!" Nagisa said while he moved both his hands a bit, he was wearing the same glove since he could remember. He never asked, but he was pretty surprised that the glove actually grew with his hand in size. Also, the glove was incredibly durable. "so, about the stages and levels, what do they indicate?"

"Hmm, let's see. Like I said before, there are 9 stages with 9 levels each. The level is decided depending on how much you've increased your mana pool." Kaede started to explain. "You're only allowed to call yourself a mage when you've reached stage 1."

"Huh... so what stage are you at?" Nagisa looked at Kaede while lifting one of his eyebrows.

"Hey! I pretty much know everything in theory! Being able to teach something doesn't necessarily means being able to do it!" Kaede instantly complained.

"Haha, sorry. I'm wasn't doubting you, I swear." Nagisa laughed as he blocked her tiny fists, "so that's simply an indicator of the size of your mana pool." Nagisa asked just to be sure.

"Pretty much yes." Kaede nodded, "Unlike humans, we dragons are ALL born with a certain amount of mana in our pool. It's essential for enlarging your pool, that's why not all humans can become mages, but dragons can." Kaede explained, "try to sense it, it should be around here." She said as she placed her hand on Nagisa's right chest.

"There?" Nagisa was a little bit surprised by the position. He expected it to be somewhere near his stomach.

"Yeah, the mana pool is somewhere near your right chest. A lot of people get this mixed up. There's a pool near your stomach as well, but that's the Ki-pool or energy pool. It's the pool combatants rely on." Kaede explained.

"Huh... wouldn't it make sense to train both then?" Nagisa asked while touching his stomach.

"Theoretically, yes, but most people decide to concentrate on one since they don't have the time and effort. People who try to improve both at the same time usually end up being mediocre in both categories." Kaede said.

"Oh ok." Nagisa nodded while narrowing his brows a little bit.

"What is it?" Kaede asked him after seeing his expression.

"So, I'm basically stuck with being a mage if I start learning from you?" Nagisa asked after hesitating for a short moment, "not that I don't appreciate it, it's just..."

"Hmm, sure I said it's not efficient to train both at the same time, but you can still switch later on. Why would you waste your time right now?" Kaede asked, "having some magic basics doesn't hurt you. And it's not like you know how to train as a combatant right now."

"You're right." Nagisa nodded after hearing Kaede's explanation, "so how do I meditate?"

"The biggest difference between a combatant and a mage is what they focus on, while mages focus on training their mind and spirit, combatants focus on their body." Kaede continued after giving Nagisa a small nod.

"Mind?" Nagisa asked slightly confused, "how do you train your mind?"

"Uhmm... I don't really know how to explain..." Kaede stopped for a second and stuttered with a slight blush.

"Uh..." Nagisa was doing his best to hold back his laughter. "I mean, don't worry, it's already impressive how much you know." Nagisa comforted her.

"I told you I was an honor student," Kaede said with a smile, but it really bothered Nagisa why she looked so sad every time she mentioned it.

"Right, so tell me how to train, Ms. honor student." Nagisa decided to ignore his weird feeling, he was probably only imagining it anyway.

"Everyone has his own way of training. What you basically have to do is to create a connection with the element you're compatible with and try to become friends with it." Kaede said while creating a tiny whirlwind around her finger. "They might be slightly hostile at first but judging how you were able to extract water from the air, you should be fine."

"Huh..." Nagisa gave Kaede's speech a little thought, closed his eyes and formed a bowl with both his hands while he concentrated to collect water from the air.

Kaede watched him with quite some interest and she was definitely surprised how fast Nagisa was able to form a water pearl in his hands, "that's right, now keep it there, you should feel how the elements are sharing their energy with you. Absorb it."

But what happened next made Kaede scream out of terror. As Nagisa tried to do what she said and wanted to absorb the energy the water elements had, the water pearl in his hands disappeared and Nagisa felt how a huge portion of energy rushed into his right chest, "whoa!?" Nagisa was clearly surprised by that but he was equally surprised by the scream Kaede let out.

"Ehhh?! Y-You drained them dry?!" Kaede looked at Nagisa like looking at a monster, "h-how did you?! And even if you can, how could you?!"

"Huh? I don't know!" Nagisa wanted to know what happened as well! As if he had any idea how or why that just happened. "You said that they'll share their energy with me! But when I tried to send the request, they just dissolved and rushed into my body!"

"I told you to become friends with them! What did you feel when you absorbed them?!" Kaede was still really upset that Nagisa just absorbed them entirely.

"Ehh... like, fear?" Nagisa wasn't so sure himself, they disappeared so fast I couldn't really tell. Nagisa shrugged with his shoulder.

"Ehh?!" Kaede had a complicated expression on her face, after hesitating for a while she finally opened her mouth again, "c-can you try not to do that? I feel sorry for them..."

"I-I don't know... I guess I can try." Nagisa said as he closed his eyes again. This time he tried to send a gentle message towards the elements he had gathered instead of directly asking for their energy.

Since they didn't get instantly absorbed this time, he had more time to confirm his feeling, "yeah, they definitely fear me for some reason." Nagisa said to inform Kaede.

After Nagisa kept sending them the sign that he didn't plan to harm them and that they could calm down, the elements finally opened up to him more. Nagisa then asked them to share their energy with him while he specifically mentioned that he only wanted a small part of their energy.

With everything he did, the elements still gave him almost 50% of their entire energy as the water pearl in Nagisa's hands was only half as big as if used to be. "Thank you..." Nagisa said sincerely before releasing the elements back into the air. "This is soooo complicated!" Nagisa complained as soon as the elements left his hands.

"I'm sorry... if it's too hard you don't have to..." Kaede said slightly against her will. She did feel really uncomfortable when Nagisa basically devoured the elements.

"No, it's fine, I kind of feel bad too when I completely absorb them." Nagisa smiled, "so how did I do?"

"Say, how high was your compatibility with your element?" Kaede asked him while smiling happily that he agreed not to devour the elements.

"Uhh... 12..." Nagisa looked to the side slightly embarrassed, he didn't know what Kaede expected from him, but he definitely wasn't meeting her expectations.

"Whaaaaat? But that's impossible!" Kaede screamed in disbelieve, you have to know that the scale goes up to a 100! 12 basically means not compatible! "The way how you're easily able to extract water elements from the air already shows how high your compatibility is!" Kaede stared at Nagisa.

"I'm telling the truth..." Nagisa said while shrugging it's his shoulders, "maybe it has something to do with the fact that they fear me..." Nagisa took a guess.

"Hmmm maybe, but even if you don't absorb the elements entirely, you should still be able to improve drastically." Kaede said to him, "you're definitely faster than all the other kids in my tribe."

"Huh, how do I know what my level is?" Nagisa asked her before taking her word. She could just be telling him anything, maybe she just had horrible potential?

"Just focus on your right chest and check how full your pool is," Kaede said.

"About 30% I guess?" Nagisa said after doing what Kaede told him to do.

"...level 3?!" Kaede stared at Nagisa with her mouth slightly opened. She did look pretty cute that way.

"What?" Nagisa couldn't say that he enjoyed being eyed like this, he felt like he was being a monster or something.

"Are you sure this was your first time meditating...?" Kaede asked him after gulping.

"Well... I did something similar from time to time when I used to be bored..." Nagisa told her, "it felt funny to gather water in my hands, but I had no idea that this was how you meditated."

"Oh, ok." Kaede sighed out of relieve, "still, you're pretty good." Kaede said while nodding.

"Hmmm... you still haven't told me what Level you're at?" Nagisa couldn't help but ask, he needed to know for sure.

"...Stage 2 Level 9." Kaede answered after hesitating for a second, "but I've been doing this for a few years now, so... I am doing pretty well though." Kaede told him but she didn't seem proud. As a matter of fact, she seemed rather sad as she said it.

Nagisa didn't comment on that one, she definitely wasn't telling him something, but so was he, they only knew each other for a week after all.

 **Khem... I know, I know, I updated the wrong story :S. I know I'm supposed to finish "Last Assassination" before working on this one but I couldn't help it! I really wanted to introduce this story a little bit more!**

 **But now I swear I'll go back working on "Last Assassination" before continuing this one :P I hope you got a slightly better picture of this story with this chapter :D**

 **Thanks a lot for your support :D! Please review, it's super important for me to hear your opinions since this is a new story! And I'll see you in the next... uhh... other story :P.**


	3. Chapter 2

The first whistle sound hinting that their work time was nearing its end echoed through the caves. Nagisa took a quick look at his cart, it was completely filled with crystals, actually so full that it was too heavy for Nagisa to carry. It had become even easier for Nagisa to track down water crystals ever since he started his magic training. Since then he could sense the energy inside them a lot better.

After quickly checking that no one was nearby, Nagisa opened a tiny hole in the wall that was just big enough for him to slip through. He quickly packed about 60% of the crystals he had gathered into the bag he was equipped with and went through the hole.

If anyone was with Nagisa right now, they would be stunned in disbelieve. There was a tiny passage behind the hole and there was also a storage right at the beginning. A storage filled with a mountain of water crystals. "That's should be enough for the next 3 weeks." Nagisa emptied his bag onto the pile and nodded.

He then looked down the passage, "if I continue digging every day, I should be able to finish in a... no... 2 months." Nagisa was quickly calculating something in his head. "I still need to mine some crystals everyday just to make sure."

The second whistle sound threw Nagisa out of his thinking progress as he quickly crawled out of his secret passage again and patched the hole with caution. Nagisa nodded after seeing his work, he wouldn't be able to find it again himself if he couldn't sense the massive stack of water crystals behind the wall. "Let's just hope that they don't find any buyers before that."

"Time to go." Nagisa whispered to himself as he shoved the cart out of the deepest corner of the cave. Only people of his or below his size would be able to reach this spot. And there weren't any people like that working on this mine. Except for Kaede but she was physically too weak to come this deep into the mine.

"Hey! Number 207!" The same high pitched voice as ever called Nagisa over.

"Yes sir?" Nagisa asked as he dropped his cart and walked over, "do you need something, sir?" It has become way easier to pretend to be respectful after being here for some time.

It's already been two months since Nagisa got here. Usually, the "goods" these bandits have captured would be sold in the same month, but dragons were different. They were such a rare catch that they always try to get the best price out of them. Especially when they could sell them in a pair!

Yes, Nagisa and Kaede have officially been confirmed as one item on their list. You know, having two dragons from different gender could also mean more dragons in the future, not that Nagisa or Kaede understood that yet. But he did realize that something made the competition way higher so Nagisa was quite positive that they would still stay here for a while. Especially after he showed his potential in mining.

"Uhh, quite a good day ey?" The man with the high pitched voice commented when he saw Nagisa's cart.

"Yes sir, I found quite a nice spot today." Nagisa forced a smile on his face, "but it was nothing I couldn't handle on my own." Nagisa added.

"That's fine, just remember, if you find something too huge for you to mine on your own you can always ask for help." The man reminded Nagisa.

 _-yeah as if... -_

"Yes sir, thank you sir!" despite what he was thinking Nagisa nodded and bowed slightly as he responded.

"Good boy, I'll send over some supplies later on. You've earned it." The man nodded with satisfaction, it's pretty rare to find such a good worker who, at the same time, was also obedient so the man treasured Nagisa quite a lot. "You can leave now."

"Thank you, sir!" Nagisa bowed again as he walked away finally showing his disgust when the man couldn't see him anymore. "Urgh, almost got a cramp in my face." Nagisa rolled his eyes as he emptied his cart.

When he was brought back to his cell, Kaede was already there on the ground with her eyes closed. Her condition was getting worse every day, of course not to the point where it was life threatening, but her eyes weren't these beautifuly shining golden stars anymore the colors had gotten dull, she looked really weak.

As usual, she fell asleep before she could even put her blanket on herself. Nagisa naturally placed his and her blanket on top of her and laid down next to her and sighed. He could see why she was getting this weak now. He didn't realize at first, but only eating three pieces of dry and hard bread everyday definitely wasn't enough! Especially on a long term!

Nagisa was physically fitter since he had been doing all the fieldwork back at his aunt's place but even he was starting to feel the weakness after two months, and Kaede came here three weeks before him!

Nagisa gently looked at Kaede while she was sleeping, something about this girl made him want to take care of her. Maybe it was because of the feeling of a home she gave him. It might sound ridiculous, but this cell was the closest thing to a home Nagisa has ever had.

Nagisa then went back to his daily routine. He sat straight, closed his eyes and started to count in his mind while starting to meditate at the same time.

 _-1... 2... gather elements... 4... 5... absorb energy... 6 ...-_

Nagisa just sat there while meditating and continued to count, that's when a guard passed their cell on his patrol.

 _-192...! -_

Nagisa quickly opened his eyes, checked the face of the guard that passed by and scratched something into the wall with a tiny stone. He then instantly went back to meditating and counting.

 _-gather elements... 197... absorb... 199... –_

When Kaede told Nagisa that mages focus on training their minds, Nagisa didn't really understand what she meant and she couldn't explain it either, but right now he thought he might have grasped a slight idea of what it was.

When he first started his daily routine it was hard to even just count and make a mark when a guard passed by without messing something up. But as time progressed, he was able to do it perfectly and now even added meditation into his routine. Doing three things at the same time with ease definitely wasn't something he was able to do before.

"Hmmm, Nagisa?" the second Kaede's voice appeared in Nagisa's ear, he stopped his meditation and opened his eyes again. He was still able to continue counting though.

"Hey, how are you doing?" Nagisa asked as he helped her to sit back up, she was getting really skinny. Almost unhealthily skinny.

"Just fine, I'm just a little bit tired that's it." Kaede shook her head and answered with a smile. But Nagisa could see her exhaustion no matter how hard she tried to cover it.

"... Kaede, just follow me tomorrow so I can help you!" Nagisa looked at her with worried eyes and begged her. He had offered her to share some of his crystals with her but she kept refusing.

"I said I'm fine, you don't have to make things harder for yourself..." Kaede was tempted to accept for a second before giving her best to turn down his offer.

"..." Nagisa was struggling, if he told her that he had a stock of crystals for the next 3 weeks she most likely will agree to his idea, but he still wasn't sure if he could tell her that.

"Hey, I just need some food and some sleep and I'll feel like a new person again!" Kaede forced a smile on her face but it was obvious that she didn't even believe her own words. "Let's talk about something else?"

"Fine." Nagisa smiled at her, "have you heard about the news that we're being sold as a package now?" Nagisa asked her in a half joking way.

"Wait what?" Kaede looked at him dumbfounded, well she obviously hadn't heard of that.

"Yeah, we're on the list as one item now, apparently they can earn more money that way." Nagisa explained.

"Hmm, wait! Does that mean we might spend the rest of our lives together!?" Kaede stared at Nagisa in disbelieve.

"Huh... maybe, why do you look so shocked!?" Nagisa never thought about it that way, but he somehow felt a little hurt by her reaction.

"That's great!" But Kaede simply jumped Nagisa and hugged him, "Thank goodness! At least I'll have someone I know by my side all the time." She cheered.

"Oh..." not that Nagisa planned to be sold, but if that was how things ended up, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing either... Nagisa quickly shook the idea out of his head. Of course he was going to escape!

"But then..." Kaede suddenly let go of Nagisa and looked at him, "do you think we'll see our parents again if we get sold?" Kaede asked Nagisa as if his would know.

"If that happens I'll make sure that you will." Nagisa promised with a smile, "My parents died right after I was born... so probably not..." Nagisa was surprised by himself that he actually told her. He never talked about that. But he guessed that living with this girl in the same cell for two entire months has opened him up to her a lot more than he had expected.

"Oh... I-I'm sorry, I didn't know..." Kaede clearly didn't expect this, she was so flustered that she looked like she might start to cry. "So that's why..." she suddenly remembered that she questioned his parents for not teaching him, "I'm so sorry..."

"Hey, it's fine, it's not your fault." Nagisa quickly comforted her, he definitely didn't tell her to make her feel bad. "I'm used to it by now." He claimed with an awkward smile on his face.

"..." Kaede still seemed rather shocked from what Nagisa told her but suddenly it looked like she had decided on something. "I've decided! From now on I'll be your big sister, so if we do see my parents again, they'll be your parents as well!"

Nagisa didn't know why, while what Kaede said to him was really heartwarming, for some reason it also felt slightly disturbing. But he just couldn't figure out what it was. Unfortunately his weird disturbance was also showing on his face.

"Hey! Why do you look so annoyed?" Kaede pouted to protest, "I'm trying my best to be nice here!" she crossed her arms and huffed.

"Haha, sorry!" Nagisa apologized with a quick laugh to hide his awkwardness. She really was cute though and with her looks it was guaranteed that she'd become a beautiful young lady she'd get older... and that was when it suddenly hit him, "Ehmm, how old are you again?"

"Uhm… about to turn 10 in a month I think, why?" Kaede answered with her head slightly tilted while calculating the time she'd spend in this cell.

Nagisa finally confirmed the source of his disturbance from before, she said she was going to be his BIG sister from now on. "Ehm, I just turned 10 two months ago." Nagisa hinted while raising his eyebrow.

"Hmm? So?" Kaede still had her head slightly tilted.

"I'm older..." Nagisa said again.

"I know! What about it?"

"Ehh... you need to be older than me to be my big sister...?" Nagisa had black bars hanging from his head as he explained. There suddenly was a long awkward silence in their conversation.

"... ... ... EHHHH? No way!" Kaede seemed genuinely shocked about the news, her eyes widened instantly.

"So... at the very most you can be my little sister... that's how it works..." The edge of Nagisa's left eye was twitching as he explained. Her parents definitely got their focus in teaching wrong... she did have really pretty eyes though. Too bad they always looked so exhausted nowadays...

"But I wanted to be a big sister..." Kaede pouted again and looked at the ground really discouragedly.

"Well, there's nothing I can change about that." Nagisa shrugged with his shoulders and laughed. "But... if you don't mind, I'd really like to have a little sister."

"Hmm... I don't know..." Kaede still seemed rather upset about the fact that she couldn't be a big sister and placed her head on her hands.

"Haha..." Nagisa laughed at her reaction. He only said it as a joke, but somehow, deep down he was actually quite disappointed.

Growl... Nagisa's stomach growled and broke his thought, but it wasn't just his stomach that was growling.

"God I'm famished... they don't nearly give us enough food do they?" Nagisa complained and tried to laugh the awkwardness off.

"Yeah... we only get a small piece of bread every meal... and it's hard as a rock..." Kaede joined Nagisa while she painfully held her stomach as it continued to growl.

"I can't believe everyone gets this little..." Nagisa said in disbelieve. They can't really expect everyone to keep their results when they're working on an empty stomach.

"Actually..." Kaede was just about to answer his question but at the exact same time a guard came with their dinner.

Like always, Kaede got a small dried piece of bread, but when Nagisa saw his portion, he was utterly confused.

The guard handed him a large loaf of rather freshly baked bread and a bowl of meat and vegetable stew. The stew looked awfully bad, but at least the nutritions were there. "Huh? How come..." but the guard left before he could ask his question.

 _I'll send over some supplies later on._

Nagisa suddenly remembered what he was told right before he left. He hadn't payed much attention to those words before but for the first time in the 2 months he had been here, he was grateful to the man. "Did you know about this…" Nagisa was about to ask when he turned himself towards Kaede.

But when he looked at her he realized how Kaede's eyes were fixated on his meal. But he could understand since she's been eating dried bread for the last three months already. He couldn't really blame her for reacting like this.

Nagisa quickly looked at his meal and then back at Kaede. After hesitating for a second, he placed the bowl in front of Kaede and broke off half of his bread and placed it on top of the bowl before taking Kaede's bread. He would take half of it but it was impossible to break apart.

Kaede instantly recovered from her spacing out and looked at Nagisa with confused eyes, but Nagisa was also able to see the tiny bit of hope and disbelieve behind the confusion. "You're only getting half of the stew, eat up before it gets cold." Nagisa smiled while biting into her hard piece of bread. "I actually like my bread harder." Nagisa told an obvious lie.

Kaede struggled and stared at the stew for a few seconds before giving in to her desires and threw herself at the bowl and started to hurl her food down.

When Nagisa finally managed to swallow the hard bread that he took from Kaede, she already placed the bowl back at his side. Nagisa was slightly surprised but also happy when he saw that she left more than half of it for him.

"Thank ..." Kaede was about to say something with a light blush on her face. She really wanted to decline, but the temptation to eat something that actually had flavor and texture was too huge for her to resist. Nagisa was surprised enough that she still managed to stop, he was prepared that she would have gobbled up the entire bowl to be honest. Of course he would've been disappointed if that were the case.

"Are you sure you had enough?" Nagisa interrupted her and asked her again, "you can have more if you want to." Nagisa offered.

"Why are you doing this?" not that she wasn't grateful, but she really wanted to know his reason.

"Hmm, do you want to hear the real reason or the fake one?" Nagisa thought about it for a second and asked her while eating a bit of the stew, "Oh god it's bad." Nagisa's body shivered a bit when he swallowed the stew.

"I know right? I didn't look promising to begin with, but that was beyond bad! I didn't know it was possible to kill the flavor of the ingredients like that!" Kaede laughed at Nagisa's reaction and agreed, "let's hear both I guess."

"Hmm, let's call it trading, like a repayment for you healing my hand every second day and teaching me the basics of magic and how to meditate." Nagisa said, "I'm still surprised how much you know to be honest."

"Oh... well... I haven't been doing anything else ever since I turned six..." Kaede's expression instantly saddened when she said that and on top of that, she seemed really disappointed in Nagisa's response.

"Why?" Nagisa didn't know why but he didn't like it when Kaede looked sad. Maybe it was because she was the first person who treated him as an equal an actual person.

"My compatibility with the wind element was off the charts... they called me a prodigy of centuries..." It was something to be proud of, but Kaede only looked depressed when she told him. "It was pretty cool at first, Daddy and Mommy were really proud of me so I also tried my best to improve as much as possible... but I didn't realize that everyone started to change." Kaede looked to the ground.

"What do you mean?" Nagisa had his eyebrows slightly narrowed, she was the exact opposite of him, his compatibility was off the charts as well..., off the charts low that was.

"I reached level 9 within three month of training, while the others only reached level 2 or at most 3..." Kaede said while hugging her own legs to her tiny body.

"Isn't that great?" Nagisa still didn't follow, she was amazing wasn't she? Why did she look so sad?

"It was supposed to... but ever since my friends have seen my potential, they started treating me differently. It felt pretty good at first, but with the time passing, my friends didn't dare to come close to me anymore...Daddy and Mommy... after grandpapa talked with them, they left me with him... but grandpapa only saw me as the hope of the tribe and all he did was forcing me to train." Kaede started to sulk as she talked.

"... I'm sorry." Nagisa wanted to comfort her but he couldn't find anything to say... what could he possibly know? He, who never had any parents or friends to begin with?

"... after I realized that... I started to slow down my training on purpose, I even let myself sit on my current level for three entire months without improving the slightest bit. I thought maybe then, my friends and my parents will turn back to normal." Kaede continued while her entire body started to shake, "but my friends started to make fun of me when they realized that I was slowing down... and grandpapa got mad and disappointed at me... he even hit me when I didn't improve for 3 months..." Kaede was now crying. "I ran away that day... and then ended up being here." Kaede tried to show Nagisa a smile but it looked even more heartbreaking than her crying.

"Hey... I didn't compliment you so that you would be sad." Nagisa gently petted her on her head while she was still sulking, "Hey! Didn't you want to hear both reasons?"

"Hmm?" Kaede slightly lifted her head to look at Nagisa, "What reasons?..."

"The reason why I shared my food with you? The one from before was a lie." Nagisa said with a slightly embarrassed smile on his face, "The truth is... I just wanted to. This little cell here, is the first place I could maybe consider as my home. Because at least here... someone is waiting for me to come back every day, at least here, someone is happy of my existence and not simply disgusted whenever they see me." Nagisa said as he wiped the tears from Kaede's face. "I don't really know how it's like to have a family... but you're the only person who I would ever consider calling that."

"..." Kaede just stared at Nagisa after hearing his response while her tears were slowing stopping to drop. But after she realized what Nagisa really said she simply jumped into Nagisa's arms and started to cry again.

"There, there." Nagisa simply held her while he gently stroked her hair, "So... let me help you tomorrow, okay?" Nagisa asked.

"Mhmm..." Kaede simply nodded while she was still swallowing her tears, "You know what? I think I don't want to be a big sister anymore." She started to smile while tears were still running down her cheeks. "I like being a little sister." She said as she nuzzled herself into Nagisa.

Nagisa spaced out for a split second to understand what Kaede just told him, "Thank you, Kaede." Nagisa smiled as he gently placed his arms around her. This little cold cell they were in, suddenly didn't feel so cold anymore.

 **So here the thing, I'm having a huge writer's block on my other story because I have started this idea before finishing my last one. And for some reason all my brain can think about when I try to write is this story. So after talking with one of my reviewers from my other story, she suggested that I should just update this one while I'm having trouble with my other story. And so I did, and I'm really thankful for that little talk :D.**

 **So yeah, getting a little more into Kaede's background story in this chapter :D and starting to bring the main couple of this story closer to each other. Be aware, this will be a long time project, probably several times longer than my other story that is slowly coming to an end so I'm not bringing all the background information out yet, I'll let it out over time.**

 **Nagisa is planning an escape! And only when he gets out of this slave prision this story will really start! In a world I completely made from scratch ever since my Highschool days (I'm in my masters degree now btw). So please look forward to it :D. But first, tell me what you think about this chapter? Pretty please? :P**

 **As always, thank you for your support! And I'll see you in the next chapter ;)!**

 **PS: Assassination Classroom reached 4k fics! Whooo!**


	4. Chapter 3

"Do you have everything Kaede?" Nagisa asked as he came back with his cart filled with the crystals he had saved up in his secret passage. He hadn't shown it to Kaede yet, not that he didn't trust her, but it was safer that way, she couldn't spill something by accident if she didn't know anything to begin with. Also, it was supposed to be a surprise.

"Yeah..." Kaede nodded as she pushed her cart towards Nagisa. Ever since Kaede agreed to let Nagisa help her with mining, they've decided to spend 2 out of their 6 work hours to help Kaede gather her crystals. The other 4 hours, Nagisa would spend on digging his passage further while Kaede would spend her time getting some crystals on her own, of course now she had the luxury to slack off a bit when she got tired.

"You're sweating a lot." Nagisa noticed as he slightly frowned and looked at her slightly worried, "are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Kaede forced a smile on her face and tried to lift her cart, "hmfp...!" Seeing how hard it was for her to lift her cart only made Nagisa's frown even deeper, Kaede was carrying the same amount of crystals as always. And considering that her physical ability had already recovered and had even improved a little in the last 2 months, it should've been rather easy for her to carry these.

"Put them down Kaede." Nagisa dropped his cart and walked towards Kaede, something was definitely wrong, her face was slightly red as well, he thought that it was because of her exhaustion, but now he had a pretty bad feeling about this.

"I'm fine Nagisa, really." Kaede quickly dropped her cart and tried to dodge Nagisa, but he still managed to grab her arm and pulled her to him. "What are you doing?" Kaede struggled to escape but Nagisa's hand didn't let go.

"Just stay still for a second!" Nagisa said as he wiped her bangs from her forehead and placed his forehead on hers, "... you have a fever." Nagisa confirmed as his face darkened. "Why didn't you tell me!?" Nagisa glared at her with his forehead still on hers.

"I..." Kaede opened her mouth but the stopped and simply avoided Nagisa's eyes, "sorry..." she apologized weakly.

"..." Nagisa glared at her for another few seconds then finally let go of her hand after letting out a long sigh, "we'll talk about it later, think you can make it back?" Nagisa asked as he gently stroked her hair.

"I'm not sure..." Kaede quickly walked away from Nagisa and tried to lift her cart again. "Hrgn... I think... I can manage." Kaede said but her legs and arms were visibly shaking.

"Forget it Kaede." Nagisa shook his head and took her cart from her. "Comon." Nagisa put his cart down on the side and kneeled down in front of Kaede with his back faced towards her.

"Eh?" Kaede was looked at Nagisa with a slightly confused look on her face, "aren't you... mad?" She carefully asked after hesitating for a second.

"Of course I am!" Kaede could see how the veins on Nagisa's forehead were visibly pounding, "but I still have to get you out of here first, don't I?" Nagisa rolled his eyes and said, "comon, don't let me kneel here forever."

"Y-yeah." Kaede quickly hopped onto Nagisa's back and Nagisa stood up again.

"Now let's see..." Nagisa placed his arms under Kaede's legs to make sure that she won't fall off and grabbed one cart with each hand, "uff..." he somehow managed to push both simultaneously. The result of his mind training definitely helped to balance both hands at the same time.

While Nagisa was concentrating on balancing both carts while still moving forward, a mixed feeling was swelling up inside Kaede. Something that she only felt when she was with her parents before getting abandoned, but something was still different. The warm and fuzzy feeling was the same, but when she was with her parents, her heart wouldn't start pounding so weirdly.

 _-Well... he IS my big brother... right?-_

Kaede though while she leaned her head against his back. It felt safe and warm. "I love you, Nagisa," Kaede whispered subconsciously before falling to sleep.

Nagisa stopped for a second and smiled after hearing what Kaede said. But what he didn't know was that the "love" Kaede was talking about was slightly different from the one he felt at this moment. But nobody could blame him, Kaede didn't know herself.

"There you are!" As always, the man with the high-pitched voice was waiting for Nagisa, "you're late today." The man said as he took a glance at Kaede, who was on Nagisa's back, unpleasantly.

"I'm sorry sir, my friend was exhausted and hurt her ankle when she slipped." Nagisa explained, "it took me a while to get her and both our carts back here." He was pretty relieved that Kaede had her face on his back for the man would definitely notice the unusual red blush and sweat on her face.

"Oh, is she ok?" The man asked but obviously didn't care much. Kaede's results did improve quite a bit in the last 2 months, but it was still only average, and nothing compared to Nagisa's. The man was actually a little bit annoyed that Kaede might slow Nagisa down. But since Nagisa was constantly improving his results, he didn't say or do anything about it.

"It's nothing huge, I'll take care of it," Nagisa answered.

"That's good. Just make sure that you don't slow down because of her. Leave the carts here, I'll let someone take care of them." The man nodded and sent them off with a guard to bring them back to their cells.

The guard reattached the iron balls while Nagisa kept Kaede's face hidden in his arms which made the guard eye him with a weird look, they were only 10 after all.

To Nagisa's relieve the guard left without suspecting anything. "Kaede?" Nagisa shook her slightly to wake her up but she didn't react at all. In fact, her forehead was even hotter than it was before. "This is bad..." Nagisa frowned as he laid Kaede down.

"Hmmm..." but the second Nagisa tried to let go of her, Kaede started to moan and tightened her grip on his sleeve while frowning.

Nagisa sighed when he saw this and sat down next to her again while caressing her hair and wiping the sweat from her forehead. "It's already been four months huh..." Nagisa said to himself while checking his mana level. Stage 0 level 9! And he only needed a tiny bit to completely fill his pool to break through to the first stage.

He wasn't as fast as Kaede when she just started, but he was close. Kaede had gone from 0-9 in 3 months and he would probably go from 3-10 in the same amount of time. Considering how impressed Kaede's tribe had been with her, Nagisa was improving incredibly fast and do mind that his time to meditate was also limited because of the daily minework he had to do.

The tunnel was nearly done as well, so Nagisa was planning to make his move pretty soon. Because there was going to be a guard shift again the next week, and if Nagisa was correct, it was going to be the one guard who had always slacked off a bit before and after the dinner break.

Usually, guards would pass their cell every 15-20 minutes, but this guard would just skip his first rotation before dinner break and then disappear for another 40 minutes after the break before bringing their dinner and starting to work again. It would be the perfect chance for Nagisa to make his move… but with Kaede in this state.

Nagisa was struggling, ditching Kaede? This thought was killed the second it passed his mind, there was no way he would do that, she was already betrayed by her family and friends once… and he could feel how reliant she had become on him.

On the other hand, the guard rotation is done every month, since there were 3 guards taking shifts in this area, Nagisa would have to wait another 3 months for the next chance. That would make 7 months in total… more than half a year, there was no guarantee that they wouldn't be sold till then.

\- _Hmm, wait! Does that mean we might spend the rest of our lives together!?" -_

\- _That's great! Thank goodness! At least I'll have someone I know by my side all the time." -_

\- _"I've decided! From now on I'll be your big sister, so if we do see my parents again, they'll be your parents as well!" -_

A gentle smile appeared on Nagisa's face as he remembered how Kaede reacted when he told her that they might spend the rest of their life together, "Well whatever, if it really comes down to it I guess I don't mind either." Nagisa mumbled to himself.

"Huh?!" That's when Nagisa was suddenly knocked out of his thought process, his mana pool was acting strangely. The mana in his pool slowly started rotating on its own and there was no way for him to stop it.

\- _What is this?! -_

The spinning was getting faster and faster and his mana was starting to spread even further. But there was no space! Nagisa had just completely filled his mana pool! All the pressure was starting to force his pool to expand! "AHHHHH!" Nagisa screamed out of pain but quickly forced himself to quiet down.

"Hmm? Nagisa?" Nagisa barely managed to hear Kaede's faint and weak voice in his own screaming, "what's wrong?!"

"M-my mana pool is… spinning!" Nagisa forced the words out of his mouth while his face is twisting like crazy.

"Mana pool spinning?" Kaede's brain was still dizzy and not working as fast as she wished for, "You're having your breakthrough? Now?" Kaede started to panic. Usually, there was always another more experienced mage to guide someone on their first breakthrough, but Kaede was in no condition to provide that for Nagisa! She could barely sit straight!

Kaede forced herself on her knees and crawled towards Nagisa, "Endure the pain Nagisa, it will stop when it finishes expanding your pool! Whatever you do, don't try to stop the spinning!" Kaede forced her voice to sound loud and clear. Cancelling or failing a breakthrough will end up with permanent damage to one's pool and make the difficulty of the next breakthrough grow exponentially!

"How… long?" Nagisa hissed while suppressing his urge to scream out of pain, the last thing he needed is the attention of the guards right now.

Kaede tried to call out some of her mana but decided not to try to help Nagisa. Her control was shaky and assisting someone's breakthrough was an extremely delicate matter. She would have to envelop Nagisa's pool and ease out the expansion speed by carefully suppressing it and reduce the pain, but as she was right now she might just straight up squash Nagisa's pool due to her lack of control. She had a way bigger mana reserves after all.

"It's only your first breakthrough so it won't take long," Kaede assured him while holding his hand as tightly as she could. There was so much she could've done for him if it wasn't for this blasted fever!

Kaede was seriously frustrated, all she could was to sit there was Nagisa tremble in all his pain. Her hand was hurting from Nagisa clenching his fist with her hand in his palm, but she didn't try to tell him or to free it. She could see that Nagisa was at the chokepoint of his breakthrough and she wasn't going to distract him right now.

Nagisa had no idea how much time had passed when the expansion had finally stopped. His pool had expanded considerably compared to before. For Nagisa, the entire process was just plain painful. The mana in his pool started rotating faster with every second and basically stretched his pool by force.

 _\- It's way more than just twice as big! About… two and a half times bigger than before I guess? –_

Nagisa noticed while checking on his pool after his breakthrough. It made sense why Kaede had told him that filling the pool would get considerably harder with each stage. Now that the rotating had stopped, and his mana went back to the center, his pool seemed surprisingly empty. It seemed like his mana reserve became slightly less? No, that wasn't it, it was just that his mana became denser than before… that only made the task to fill his pool even harder.

 _\- So my mana increased in both quality and quantity… that's gonna take a while. –_

Nagisa sighed before opening his eyes again. It was only then that he realized that his entire body was soaking wet from all the sweat, he was too concentrated on his pool that he hadn't noticed. He quickly drained the moisture out of his clothes and hair and absorbed them before he would catch a cold.

"Kaede?" Was his second thought as he quickly looked around him and found her laying on his lap while breathing heavily and shaking. Her hand was slightly swollen and red from Nagisa holding it so tightly. In short, she was in a horrible state, the panic attack Nagisa had caused her definitely didn't help with her situation.

"… Are you feeling alright?" Kaede asked weakly trying to get back up but the pain coming from her hand made her fall back again.

"I'm the one who's supposed to ask that!" Nagisa frowned while letting her head rest on his lap while putting his hand on her forehead. "You're burning up! Don't bother to get up, just stay still and rest, no talking!" Nagisa started to panic, he had no idea how to help her and calling the guards was definitely a no go! If they found out that Kaede had a fever, she would get taken away in an isolated cell to prevent the virus from spreading until she had recovered.

Nagisa had no doubt that they would treat her, dragons were too valuable to be discarded just because of a simple fever, but the idea of her being in a cold cell while having a fever all alone just didn't sit well with him.

"But…", Kaede clearly wanted to say something else but the extreme exhaustion and Nagisa's rather straightforward order made her decide otherwise, she fell asleep the second she closed her eyes.

 _\- If only I had something to cool her down… -_

Nagisa thought desperately and didn't even notice how water started to gather in the palm he had placed on Kaede's forehead and it quickly turned into ice. "H-huh?" Nagisa was startled when a sudden piece of information just ingrained itself into his brain.

 _Status control: Able to manipulate the temperature and status of any kind of liquid in a short_

 _amount of time (differs from the kind of liquid)_

"W-what was that?!" Nagisa's eyes shot wide open as he quickly pulled his hand away from Kaede's forehead and stared at it. Tiny ice shards were still visible on his palm.

 _\- Increase temperature! –_

The tiny ice shards instantly melted and then turned into steam and evaporated. Nagisa stared at his hand in disbelieve but quickly caught his thoughts again, no matter what this was, it could help Kaede right now! Nagisa quickly closed his eyes after grabbing his blanket. To save time, Nagisa simply used his mana to create some water instead of slowly gathering it from his surroundings and let his blanket soak up the liquid.

 _\- Colder! –_

The liquid in his blanket quickly started to decrease in temperature, but unlike last time, it didn't freeze this time. A small glimpse of excitement flashed in Nagisa's eyes before he continued to adjust the temperature of his blanket until he was satisfied and placed it on Kaede's forehead.

He then leaned to the side to grab Kaede's blanket as well and wrapped it around her. The cell was way too cold after all. Nagisa grunted while a shiver ran down his spine.

 _\- Wait maybe I could… -_

The idea became more and more plausible the more Nagisa thought about it, so he tried to put it to a test. He closed his eyes, concentrated all his mind and tried to create a connection with the majority of the water elements in this cell with his mana. When he had most of them covered he ordered them to heat up a bit.

To his delight, the temperature of the cell started to increase at an immense speed until it was warm and rather cozy in there. Nagisa was just about to cheer for his success before a sudden wave of dizziness had hit him.

 _\- What's going on? -_

He quickly went ahead and checked his mana pool only to find it almost empty, his head felt extremely heavy and his mind was cloudy. This was his first time connecting to this many water elements with his own mana, so he had no idea! Realizing that there was no way he could stay awake in this state, Nagisa decided to just give in to his mental exhaustion and closed his eyes.

By the time the guard came to deliver their dinner, both of them were dozing off peacefully with Nagisa leaning against the wall and Kaede laying on his lap.

 **Alright, :D Nagisa's become an official mage! My concept of magic in this story will be explained further in the next chapters. For now, you'll just have to let your imagination run wild :D I mean, it's magic!**

 **Tell me what you think about this chapter! I'd really appreciate it!**

 **As always, thank you all so much and I'll see you in the next chapter ;)!**


	5. Chapter 4

It had been 2 weeks since Nagisa had broken through the first stage and Kaede has finally recovered from her fever.

During the 2 weeks, Nagisa had been able to hide Kaede's fever with his newly awoken power _Status Control_. Kaede had wanted to teach him more about his new ability, but Nagisa had convinced her to wait until she felt better again.

She had still told him about the basics though. From what she said, it was another advantage of the dragon tribes. Dragons would gain a new ability with every new stage. These abilities were also called **Unique Skills**.

From what Kaede had told him, **Unique Skills** were usually one-of-a-kind abilities, that dragons gained on top of the spells and techniques from usual mages and combatants. Just as the name suggested, these skills were unique to the user. The chances of two dragons having ONE identical "Unique Skill" was lower than 5 % which made the chances having multiple ones almost none existent.

"My **Unique Skills** are _Fleet Footwork_ and _Shape Manipulation._ " Kaede whispered to Nagisa after making sure that no guard was near their cell, "Remember that you must never reveal your Skills to someone you don't trust with all of your heart." She warned him with a serious face.

"Huh…" Nagisa deadpanned, it wasn't exactly convincing to say that right after she had revealed her Skills to him, "But I don't really get it, so they're basically extra spells, what's the big deal?" Nagisa asked.

"It's hard to explain so I'll show you." Kaede smiled while lifting both her hands, "Our **Unique Skills** will have a huge influence on our magic style. Here…" she started to mutter some weird sounding words under her breath.

A visible greenish air ball started to form in her palm and when it stabilized, she aimed her palm against a wall, " _Air Bullet!"_.

The second she announced her spell, the air ball rapidly left her palm and shot towards the wall she was aiming at! With a dull sound of impact, it dissolved again sending a tiny breeze back to Nagisa and Kaede.

"Woah!" Nagisa quickly moved towards the spot of impact, there was a fairly deep dent in the massive wall! "That's amazing!", if that had hit a human, he would've been blown away and at least had a few broken ribs!

"That was a standard rank 2 wind spell." Kaede let out a quiet giggle seeing Nagisa's reaction, it was the first time she saw him actually acting his age, "Move aside Nagisa, I'm gonna do the same again but with my **Unique Skill** now."

"Mhmm." Nagisa nodded and quickly crawled back beside Kaede as she started to mutter the same words again. Just like before the air ball started to gather in her hands but this time she didn't shoot it as soon as it had stabilized. Instead, the emerald scale on her right hand started to glow! The shape of the air ball slowly started to stretch and turned into a spike, " _Air Bullet!"_.

Once again, the air spike shot into a wall! Only this time it didn't simply dissolve with a dull sound, the sound was a little higher pitched and there wasn't the breeze that had been sent back from before.

Nagisa went ahead to observe the spot again. Unlike the dent from before, the impact area of this one was a lot smaller, but at the same time, the hole in the wall was a lot deeper! The second _Air Bullet_ was definitely a lot more dangerous than the first one! It was slightly faster as well!

"See what I mean? **Unique Skills** are special because they can be added on top of your regular magic, you can use them to alternate the usual spells to make them more effective or maybe even change its effect."

"I see…" Nagisa was imagining what he could do with his _Status Control_ , "Do you know any water magic spells? I don't know any." Nagisa then asked her.

"Hmm… I never really paid attention to them since they are useless to me." Kaede clocked her head to the side and started thinking, "Oh wait! I know one!" she claimed excitedly.

"Hmm?" Nagisa's eyes sparkled with excitement as he waited for her answer.

"Remember the healing spell I use to heal our hands every second day?" Kaede asked with a cute grin on her face, "That's an alternation or rather simplification from the original Healing spell which is a water exclusive spell, I just happen to remember the original spell." Kaede explained proudly.

"What's the difference between the alternation and the original?" Nagisa asked.

"Hmm the original spell is more effective, my grandpapa told me that before the alternation was invented, water mages were the only ones who could use healing magic. But a prodigy from the wind tribe managed to make the spell usable for wind mages as well." Kaede explained, "But still this was the only healing spell he managed to alternate, higher ranked healing spells are still water exclusive."

"So healing is water exclusive huh…" Nagisa didn't know why, but the idea of playing a supportive role didn't sit right with him. "What's the spell?" Nagisa still asked with a smile on his face, even though he didn't like it, healing spells would always come in handy.

They spent the next few hours before dinner teaching Nagisa how to pronounce the spell correctly. "I think I got it." Nagisa felt like his brain had been fried. Kaede was a strict teacher, not only did she teach Nagisa the pronunciation of the spell, but she also told him the meaning of each and single word. Of course, it would prove to be useful later on, but Nagisa wasn't prepared to learn a new language when he asked for a spell.

"Alright give it a try!" Kaede urged him while Nagisa was still fighting the dizziness in his head. He quickly shook his head and tried to concentrate again.

"Alright, here it goes." Nagisa closed his eyes and started to mutter the spell while calling forth his mana, " _Healing touch!_ " Nagisa announced and touched his left arm with his right hand. Instantly he felt the spells effect on his arm. It was slightly different from the one Kaede was using, his felt more soothing and gentle, while Kaede's was a little wild on the edges.

"Hmm… so what happens when I…" Nagisa closed his eyes again and the scale on his right hand started to glow, "I don't feel anything OUCH!" Nagisa yelped and instantly let go of his left arm. His arm was starting to turn purple and it was stiff.

"What did you do?!" Kaede quickly muttered her own healing spell and placed her hands on Nagisa's arm, it was cold! "Did you just try to use your _Status Control_ on a healing spell?!" Kaede scolded him in disbelieve, "Healing spells work inside the body! When you mess up you could seriously injure or even kill yourself!" Kaede yelled angrily while healing his frozen arm, "There, now it's better… your blood vessels are still a little bit blocked though."

"Hmm… sorry." Nagisa scratched the back of his hand with his good arm, "Here let me take over." Nagisa offered while activating his own healing spell again.

"Don't do anything stupid!" Kaede glared at him before slowly pulling her arms back, "You were also going to heat the healing spell up weren't you…" she asked him with a slight pout on her face.

"Ehm… no?" Nagisa lied while his scale started to glow again.

"Hey! Stop it!" Kaede complained while trying to pull Nagisa's hand off his arm.

"It's working!" Nagisa shouted excitedly. When he used his _Status Control_ to turn the water nature into steam, the area of effect of the spell was a lot bigger and the healing effect was a lot weaker, but the heat made it really comfortable like just coming out of a sauna.

"Huh…" Nagisa let out a long sigh, well at least his vessels weren't blocked anymore, "So using ice with _Healing Touch_ is dangerous…" Nagisa noted. A sound of coming towards their cell made Kaede and Nagisa instantly looked up and move back into their corners. A guard holding two trays with food came around the corner.

After Nagisa had shared his dinner with Kaede like usual and had waited for the guard to leave with their empty plates, Nagisa quickly sat back up and looked towards Kaede, "Hey, I think you said that you had two 2 **Unique Skills**." Nagisa reminded her.

"Hmm? Oh yeah, what I showed you before was _Shape Manipulation,_ it lets me change the shape and form of the wind element I gather." Kaede explained, "Just like your _Status Control_ it requires a bit of creativity to use it effectively. My other one is rather hard to show you… oh, I know! Hey Nagisa, give me a piggy back!" Kaede happily asked.

"Huh?" Nagisa raised an eyebrow out of confusion, "I mean sure, but why?" Nagisa asked but still turned his back towards her and kneeled down.

"You'll see!" Kaede answered while jumping onto Nagisa's back and wrapping her arms around his neck. The chain of the iron ball was long enough so it stayed on the ground.

"Woah! Easy there!" Nagisa said after he almost lost balance from Kaede's jump. "So? What now?"

"Just give me a second," Kaede assured him while her scale started to glow. But nothing seemed to have happened.

"Huh? Did you just?" Nagisa asked astonished when the weight on his back suddenly reduced itself.

"Yeah, _Fleet Footwork_ reduces my weight by 50% and makes me float a little when I'm jumping or midair." Kaede explained as she jumped off Nagisa's back, "See?" Nagisa turned around and saw how she was slowly moving back towards the ground while tiny whirls of gust gathered around her. It took her 3 seconds to reach the ground again, "I can control how much I float by adjusting the wind surrounding me."

"Wait so if you jump from somewhere really high you can float for ages?" Nagisa asked her enviously, "That would almost be like flying."

"Well… yes." Kaede chuckled a bit awkwardly, "Until I run out of mana that is."

"… Did you try?" Nagisa deadpanned.

"… The second I got it."

"I see…" Nagisa could understand, when he had used his **Unique Skill** for the first time, he had drained his entire mana pool as well, "Did you get hurt?"

"No… daddy caught me last second." She said with a sad smile.

 _\- Ah… her parents abandoned her to make her train with her grandfather… -_

Nagisa remembered after asking the question, "Hey, Kaede." He called her to catch her attention.

"Mhmm?" She looked up.

"When we're on duty tomorrow, follow me for a while." Nagisa smiled while leaning against the wall, "I have a surprise for you." Nagisa took a deep breath and decided. Kaede recovered faster than he had expected, there was still more than an entire week before the next guard shift which meant that the guard who was slacking off was still on duty!

"Hmm? Sure." Kaede looked at him a little bit confused but also excitedly, "What is it?"

"We're trying to escape tomorrow." Nagisa whispered to her after making sure no one was close by, "I dug a secret passage out of this place."

"…" Kaede stared at him dumbfounded.

"What's wrong?" Nagisa was confused, "Don't you want to leave?" He frowned a little bit while asking.

"I do… but… won't it be dangerous?" Kaede gulped and asked a bit hesitantly.

"Maybe, if we get caught we will be in trouble. But I do think it's worth a try." Nagisa said while looking at Kaede's expression. She was still hesitant, it almost looked like she didn't want to escape.

"Hey, Nagisa… i-if we manage to escape… what then?" Kaede asked with a troubled look on her face, "Don't get me wrong, I do want to leave… but…"

"But? What's the matter?" Nagisa blinked a few times out of confusion, he couldn't think of anything that might make Kaede want to stay in this cell.

"If we manage to get out of here… where will you go to?" Kaede bit the bottom of her lips and asked. "Will you still be my big brother?"

"Oh…" Nagisa blinked at her dumbfounded, he hadn't thought about that, "I'll be your big brother as long as you don't mind Kaede… and to where I will go, I don't really know." Nagisa let out a silent sigh, "Do you think the wind tribe might take me in?" Nagisa asked with a slightly sad smile.

Kaede bit her lower lip again, Nagisa was asking to live in the wind tribe. But in the history of all of the four tribes, there had never been a case of a non-tribe member being allowed to live in a certain tribe, "I'm not sure, but we can still ask! Grandpapa is the chief of our tribe! And he saw me as the hope of the tribe or even the dragon race! You're just as good as me! So maybe grandpapa will take you in!"

"Yeah… that'd be nice." Nagisa gave it a little thought before smiling, "If your grandfather would allow that you wouldn't have to train all alone anymore." Nagisa petted her on the head while saying. "So come with me tomorrow, I'll show you my plan then."

One day was more than enough for Kaede to remember and understand Nagisa's plan to every single detail. The mind training a mage goes through not only increases their ability to multitask but also increased their memory capacity and speed of understanding at the same time.

"Alright." Kaede nodded while pulling her blanket closer to her body, the sun was going down and it was getting colder in their cell.

"Let's rest early today, we'll need our stamina tomorrow." Nagisa smiled as he pulled his own blanket to cover his body, "Good night, Kaede."

"Good night, Nagisa." Kaede smiled at him as she nodded and closed her eyes.

* * *

Kaede was standing inside the secret storage Nagisa had dug and stared at the passage in disbelieve, "So you dug a tunnel to the outside AND towards our cell while you also kept mining an impressive amount of crystals to maintain our meals?".

"Pretty much yeah." Nagisa gave it a little thought before he nodded in confirmation, "So did you remember where all these tunnels go?" Nagisa asked again just to be sure.

"Yeah, I got it all." Kaede nodded in confirmation. "But you said we'll run right after they bring us back to our cells, what about the chain and the iron ball?" Kaede wondered, "I don't think we'll get far with these on us."

"Don't worry about it, you'll see." Nagisa grinned before starting to fill his and Kaede bags to load them into their carts outside the hole, "Let's get out of here before they wonder where we're off to." Nagisa said while carefully pushing the bag through the hole and slipping through it right after.

"Yeah." Kaede nodded while taking her own back and doing the exact same.

Once Kaede made it out as well and filled the crystals from her bag into her cart, Nagisa started to patch the hole one last time, "This should do it." Nagisa nodded with satisfaction while patting the mud that filled the hole while the second whistle echoed through the caves, "Let's go."

Everything had gone smoothly when they got back into their cell, Nagisa handled the man with the high-pitched voice like always, unloaded his cart with Kaede and they were sent back into their cells.

 _Clack,_ the sound of the chain getting reattached to their legs echoed through the empty cell as the guard Nagisa had been keeping an eye on, locked the door before taking his leave to slack off again.

They both stayed still until the footsteps of the guard weren't audible anymore and Nagisa started to move. Quickly gathering two fist-size water balls, Nagisa made them cover certain spots on both chains before the scale on his right hand started to glow like a sapphire.

"Alright, can you use your _Air Bullet_ on my ice Kaede?" Nagisa asked after eyeing his work, "preferably the spikey version."

"I don't think that's gonna work Nagisa." Kaede frowned a little but still did as he asked as she started to mutter her spell.

"It will! Trust me." Nagisa assured her while watching the air balls turn into spinning spikes as her scale started to glow as well.

 _Kling,_ the chain on Nagisa's leg was easily split in two only leaving a short rest still attached to him. Now that the chain was broken, Kaede could see that the inside of the chain was already rusty and weak. "Did you?"

"Yeah, I started shortly after being captured, I continued to lock moisture into one spot every day until the inside was all rusty and weak, originally I was thinking if I could smuggle a hammer or a spike into our cell, but your _Air Bullet_ was a better alternative and the fact that I could freeze it to make it easier was just a bonus." Nagisa explained while Kaede charged up a second _Air Bullet_ to sever her own chain.

"You planned all of this?" Kaede shook her head as she put her mind to it, "And people told me that I didn't act like a child.".

"Well, I was on my own a bit longer than you, it's not really something to be proud of." Nagisa sighed before walking into a corner of their cell and carefully removed the tile there revealing a small hole barely big enough for them to fit through, "No going back after this Kaede, you ready?" Nagisa took a deep breath while placing the tile on the side and looking towards Kaede.

"Yeah, we'll make it out of here and have you join the wind tribe." Kaede also took a deep breath and confirmed with determination while walking towards the hole.

"Yeah." Nagisa smiled while letting Kaede walk past him and jump through the hole in the ground, waited for a few seconds to let her get out of the way before following her. There was no going back anymore.

 **And the great escape begins! After spending almost 5 months in a slave prison Nagisa's finally making his move! Hehe, I'm getting excited myself, this story is slowly getting started now! I hope you guys are getting excited as well :P.**

 **I assume some of you already noticed that Kaede's feelings towards Nagisa aren't just purely the simple feelings for an older sibling anymore. I do believe that girls start developing romantic feelings earlier than boys. But while she's having some romantic feelings for him, she has no idea herself.**

 **Well,** **I'm gonna stop writing before I accidentally give out spoilers :D. Tell me what you think about this chapter! It's really important to me!**

 **And as always, thank you so much for your support! And I'll see you in the next chapter ;)!**


	6. Chapter 5

Kaede was carefully following Nagisa as he led the way through the tunnel towards their first destination. Nagisa wanted to get back to his storage so they could both grab some wind and water crystals for their escape.

From the lessons with Kaede, Nagisa had learned that the crystals he had been mining held and were also able to store mana inside them.

Kaede had always wondered why Nagisa had sometimes asked her to fill a crystal with mana before taking it and disappearing into the mines again. It all made sense now, Nagisa had been saving up a few fully charged crystals just for their escape.

"We won't be able to take too many with us." Nagisa whispered when they finally got to his storage, "pick 4 or 5 with the most amount of mana." Nagisa told Kaede before searching his pile of water crystals. Depending on the quality, crystals were able to hold different amounts of mana. Because Nagisa wasn't able to identify them, he just charged as many crystals as possible over time and was now picking out the best ones.

After finding himself three crystals, Nagisa looked towards Kaede who returned him a nod to tell him that she was done as well. Nagisa wanted Kaede to hold onto more crystals because she might need her _Fleet Footwork_ a lot during their escape.

Returning Kaede's nod, Nagisa silently slipped back into the tunnel they came from and followed the tunnel that led out of the prison.

They slowly crawled towards the exit in absolute silence. It was taking quite a while since Nagisa had made sure that the tunnel was long enough, so it would be far away enough from the guard towers that he had seen when he was brought to the prison.

When they have finally reached a dead end, Nagisa let out a deep breath before looking back at Kaede to give her a warning and some time to adjust. Once they were out of the tunnel, they had to improvise, Nagisa had no way to plan an escape route once they were out.

After seeing Kaede taking a few deep breaths herself and then nodding at him, Nagisa took another deep breath, held it and shoved his arms through the soil over him!

His arms easily went through the layer of soil above them and a small part of it started to fall apart revealing a rather dark and cloudy sky when he pulled his arm back. The feeling of a fresh breeze blowing into the tunnel made Nagisa close his eyes and greedily sniff for the fresh air before opening his eyes again.

He found Kaede doing the exact same behind him, it had been 5 months since they were overground and had some fresh air after all! Feeling as if parts of his body just came back to life, Nagisa carefully poked his head out of the opening and checked their surroundings.

After making sure that no one was around to see them, Nagisa swiftly climbed out of the tunnel before holding a hand back down to pull Kaede up as well.

He only realized that it was starting to rain when Kaede also managed to make it out of the tunnel and a rain droplet fell on her cheek. He silently cheered since the rain would reduce the visibly significantly while also making his job to gather water elements for his magic a lot easier.

"Which way?" Nagisa whispered after taking cover behind a tree with Kaede. Since they were planning to head towards the wind tribe, Nagisa had no idea where to go.

"My tribe is to the west, we'll just have to go deeper into the woods." Kaede answered after giving it a little thought, "this way." She said before silently moving in a crouch.

Nagisa nodded and followed her while trying his best to stay in the shadows. "Oh no…" Nagisa's eyes widened when Kaede suddenly stopped and muttered with terror showing in her eyes.

"What's wrong?" Nagisa hissed nervously while quickly placing a hand on her shoulder to calm her down.

"We're spotted! Run!" Kaede shook her head and shouted when she came back to her senses and pulled Nagisa up from his crouching position before starting to run as fast as she could.

"What?! How?" Nagisa asked frustratedly while letting go of Kaede's hand and running on his own, he could see that Kaede was already using her _Fleet Footwork_ by the tiny gusts around her body.

The only reason Nagisa was able to keep up with her, was because even though Kaede's physical state had improved significantly after Nagisa was granted a better meal, Nagisa was still a lot fitter than her due to all the work he had been doing before getting caught. Not to forget that Kaede had just recovered from a fever as well.

"They have a mage around! At least stage two maybe even stage three!" Kaede yelled back while sprinting through the woods, "he set up a sensory type barrier around this place! I felt it scan us when we passed it just now!"

"Damn it!" Nagisa cursed before he stopped to talk and focused on running, he didn't want to waste more energy and stamina on talking while running for his life.

Just as he finished talking, he heard how the alarms were starting to ring behind them and people starting to gather and rush towards the position they had been just a few minutes ago. Unfortunately, the mage was also able to sense exactly where the barrier had been breached.

"What's this smell?" Kaede suddenly frowned and asked after they've been running for quite a while.

"Something smells burnt." Nagisa sniffed a few times as well before his eyes widened, "You can't be serious!" He gritted his teeth and hissed. He had spread his mana and could feel the moisture in the air evaporating! "They've set the forest on fire!"

After running for quite a while, Nagisa realized that something was fishy. While they were running and avoiding either the fire or their pursuits, they were slowly being forced into a certain direction while the people chasing them were forming a U-form around them. But Nagisa couldn't figure out why they would leave a part of their circle open…

"Kaede?" Nagisa frowned when he suddenly realized that the rhythm of her breathing was getting out of order and she was gasping for air. With all the thinking he wasn't able to pay a lot of attention to her situation.

She tried to answer but the lack of air prevented her from speaking. She was running out of stamina really quickly, and the suffocating air caused by the fire wasn't helping her situation at all! They could consider themselves lucky that is was raining so the fire wasn't spreading as fast or they'd be in even more trouble!

"Get on my back!" Nagisa yelled at her before grabbing her wrist and stopping her, "Don't talk back! We don't have time for this! Just focus on your _Fleet Footwork_ to make it easier for me!" Nagisa said undeniably before forcefully throwing her on his back and continued to run while Kaede was heavily panting on his back.

With Kaede focusing all her mind on her _Fleet Footwork_ , Nagisa could barely feel her weight since she was also making her body float on top of reducing her own weight.

"Sorry, Nagisa." Kaede apologized quietly after catching her breath again. "Did you notice that they're trying to force us into a direction?"

"Yeah… I have a bad feeling about this." Nagisa answered grudgingly, "and they're catching up to us."

No matter how fast they were, the fact that they weren't fully grown and still had shorter limps limited their speed by a lot. "The mage is catching up as well!" Kaede closed her eyes to focus on something and earned Nagisa.

"How do you know?" Nagisa wondered with a frown while jumping over a root.

"You're not there yet, I can't really explain without you being able to feel it." Kaede shook her head and answered. "Just keep runn…", her words were stuck in her throat when Nagisa dashed out of the forest and was forced to stop.

There was a cliff right in front of them, or rather a 10 m gap between the two mountains. The bridge that was supposed to connect both sides was broken. Nagisa took a quick glance down the cliff and saw a tiny river running at the bottom about 600 meters deeper.

"W-what now?" Kaede almost whined as she swallowed her fear. Their pursuers were closing in fast! They didn't have much time left, "S-should we jump and try to land in the river?" Kaede gulped as she suggested.

"No… we don't know how deep the river is… hey, can u make an air ball that can contain water?" Nagisa worked his brain rapidly and came up with an absolutely absurd plan, but he had no choice since he didn't have time to think of another one.

"Yeah… why?" Kaede raised an eyebrow and asked, "that's rather easy actually."

"Can you do that while maintaining your _Fleet Footwork_?" Nagisa asked again.

"I think so." Kaede answered a little bit unsure, "what do you want to do?"

"I don't have time to explain, trust me, please! No matter what happens, don't drop the airball or your _Fleet Footwork_ until I say so! And try to suppress the size of your airball as much as possible!" Nagisa grit his teeth as he started to collect water from the air and rain to make a water ball.

"Kaede!" Nagisa yelled when his water ball was almost as big as him and Kaede quickly started to form an air ball to contain and suppress the water Nagisa had collected. "Keep your _Fleet Footwork_ at your absolute maximum! And place the airball at the edge of the cliff!" Nagisa talked really quickly since he would hear their pursuers coming closer!

"Close your eyes and when I say now let your airball go alright?" Nagisa asked Kaede and got a nod from her while she closed her eyes a bit hesitantly but decided to concentrate on keeping both the airball and her **Unique Skill** going.

Nagisa took a deep breath and a few steps back before the scale on his hand started glowing and Kaede's airball was starting to shake trying to expand, "Keep the pressure Kaede! Don't let it expand!" Nagisa yelled while he started to sprint towards the airball.

"NOW!" Nagisa screamed when he took a huge step and jumped over the shaking airball Kaede was suppressing. With a loud hissing sound, an immense amount of boiling hot steam exploded out of the airball that Kaede had dissolved and blasted both of them into the air on Nagisa's command.

"WHAT DID YOU DO NAGISA!?" Kaede screamed out of terror when she opened her eyes from the sudden unexpected movement and realized that they were flying over the cliff!

"MAKE YOURSELF FLOAT KAEDE! USE ALL YOUR CRYSTALS!" Nagisa didn't answer and screamed out of panic since Kaede's concentration was slightly fading due to her fear.

Quickly putting her mind back into her **Unique Skill** and draining all the mana from her crystals to support it, Kaede's body started to float while lifting Nagisa's body slightly with her as if she was a parachute!

"IT'S WORKING!" Nagisa cheered loudly in disbelieve and relieve at the same time. While he did bet everything onto his plan, he was never too confident that it would work.

Kaede only nodded excitedly while wearing a big smile on her face, she wasn't talking so she could concentrate to maintain the mana supply for her **Unique Skill** , the amount of mana she had to manage to keep both of them floating was way beyond her usual capacity!

Nagisa's heart was pounding like crazy when they were nearing the other side of the mountain! They were only about two meters away from landing and breaking free! There was no way their pursuers would be able to come after them on the spot!

A sudden heatwave approaching from behind them made Nagisa's heart go cold. His eyes widened in despair when a huge fireball flew past them and crashed right in front of them while Kaede was still focusing on her **Unique Skill**!

The shockwave and hot air caused by the spell blew both Nagisa and Kaede back to the center of the gap in almost an instance when they started to fall!

* * *

Kaede was slightly shaking out of excitement before a sudden red light and shockwave sent both Nagisa and her tumbling back and confusing the hell out of her.

While her brain was still trying to understand what had just happened, she felt how Nagisa suddenly grabbed her left ankle really tightly while removing her from the piggyback position, "Don't look back, just run!" She heard Nagisa tell her before she was flung through the air again!

 _\- Don't look where? Run where? –_

Kaede mind went blank when her body suddenly hit solid ground and started to tumble forward before being stopped by a tree. The impact knocked the air out of her lungs and her field of vision turned black for a split second before she greedily grasped for air and blinked her eyes a few times rapidly.

Her vision recovered just in time to see Nagisa's body disappearing behind the edge of the cliff and everything finally clicked in her mind!

Just when they were about the reach the other side of the cliff, the fire mage that had spotted them earlier arrived at the scene and barely managed to shoot his rank 2 spell _Fireball_ after them! Due to the hastily casted spell, he had missed them, but the shockwave of his spell hitting the cliff still knocked them away from it.

They had both been heading towards the bottom of the cliff when Nagisa had instantly grabbed her ankle and tossed her towards the other side with all his might. Because she had subconsciously held on to her _Fleet Footwork,_ Nagisa's final attempt had successfully made her glide all the way to the other side before she had crashed into the ground and rolled into the tree she was laying at right now.

"NAGISA!" Kaede screamed before clumsily but desperately trying to get back on her feet with her sense of orientation still being messy from all the spinning.

Before she could reach the cliff, half running and half crawling, another _Fireball_ exploded in front of her causing her to roll away from the cliff once again!

 _Don't look back, just run!_

Nagisa's last words echoed through her mind while she stared at the cliff behind the forest with a dead look in her eyes. The forest was ignited by of the _Fireball_ and the fire was slowly spreading to the other trees.

With her lips slightly quivering, Kaede took one last look at the cliff before getting back on her feet, turned around and started to sprint away from the cliff with her eyes tightly closed.

* * *

"Sir! Shall we continue our pursuit?" A man in a standard bandit guard uniform approached a man in a fancy looking dark red cape with golden linings and asked.

"… no, there's no point in that." The man shook his head slowly, "Sent a team down the cliff to search for any remains of that other dragon. Dragon parts are still rather valuable." The man commanded before turning around to leave.

"YES, SIR!" A bunch of bandits standing at the cliff chorused before trying to figure out a way to get to the bottom of the cliff.

* * *

Kaede had already forgotten how often she had fallen, gotten back up just to trip again while running with her eyes tightly shut to prevent her tears from falling.

She had no idea how far she had gotten, but she had managed to get out of the woods before being caught in the fire thanks to the heavy rain that was falling.

Kaede was now laying on a tiny grass field not being able to get back up again because her entire body was aching and hurting due to her exhaustion and her wounds from falling so often.

She had fallen unconscious the last time she had tripped. And during that time, her mana level that she had been suppressing since before even getting caught, had broken through with all the excessive mana that she had absorbed from the wind crystals.

She had broken through the third stage while she was unconscious and with all the pressure the excessive mana and her suppressing her level for so long had caused, she was now a stage 3 level 3 wind mage! But she couldn't care less at the moment. Tears were running down her cheeks while she blankly stared at the sky without her even blinking.

She just laid there for a few minutes before the information of her newly acquired **Unique Skill** echoed in her mind.

 _Soaring Wings: Grants a pair of air wings and the power of flight for 5 minutes, flight speed and duration increase with each rank._

"Ah… wah… urgh…" Tears started to well up in Kaede's widened eyes while broken sounds were coming out of her throat before turning into a heartbreaking cry, "WAAAAAHHHHHHrgh… …WAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

She cried while digging her nails into the ground and wailing her head as hard as she could! The sense of regret filled every corner of her currently fragile mind.

Her third **Unique Skill** had turned out to grant the ability of flight, a power that could've easily gotten them over the cliff even with the interference of the fire mage. She had been able to attempt her breakthrough ever since being caught and locked up in the slave prison! But her past trauma had made her suppress her mana level, resulting in her actively denying her breakthrough all this time!

If she hadn't been so stubborn… if she had just allowed herself to break through the third stage, she wouldn't have been laying here on her own now.

She would've been laying here and laughing with the older brother she had met in a prison. That older brother who took care of her that entire time and she loved oh so much. He would have been petting her on her head and offering her a piggyback while wearing a warm and gentle smile on his face…

But she had been stubborn… she didn't allow herself to break through the third stage. And now all there was, was a little girl laying on the ground all alone while crying her heart out and drowning in her deep regret.

 **Shit… my heart was super heavy when I was writing the last part… that turned out a lot better (or worse) than I had imagined if that makes any sense.**

 **Well, welcome to the official start of the story! I guess you can call all the chapters till this point the prologue of this story. Hope you've enjoyed it and are ready to finally enter the main story!**

 **And before you even ask, of course Nagisa is NOT DEAD! I just told you that this is the actual start of the story! How am I supposed to start the story with the main protagonist dead?**

 **So how do you guys like this chapter? And how do you like the end of the prologue? From a scale from 1-10, how excited are you for this story now :P? Please tell me in the reviews!**

 **And as always, thank you so much for your support and I'll see you in the next chapter ;)!**


	7. Chapter 6

"Woah!" Nagisa's body shot up when he opened his eyes and he was gasping for air. His head felt heavy and slightly dizzy when all the memory started to flush back into his brain.

 _\- Ahh… right, I threw Kaede to the other side before falling down the cliff… Then how am I still…-_

Nagisa held his left hand over his left eye as he slowly moved every part of his body separately, they were all intact. He then switched his attention to his surroundings, he was in a cave, that much was sure. He was also sitting on a pile of leaves while a small fire was burning a few meters away from him. Aside from that, the cave was completely empty.

 _\- Someone brought me here… I wonder how long I've been out? –_

Nagisa's thoughts were interrupted when a shadow of a person entered the cave and he quickly threw himself back onto the piles of leaves and closed his eyes leaving only a tiny slit open.

"Cut it out, kid. I know you're awake." A deep and slightly rusty voice echoed in Nagisa's ears, but he still forced himself to breathe evenly and to maintain his heartbeat.

"The idea is good, but your execution is terrible kid. Any person with a little bit of experience can see that you're faking it." The same voice sounded amused when it got closer. "Get up or I'm dropping a knife on your head." The voice got uncomfortably close when it started a countdown, "3… 2…"

Nagisa instantly snapped his eyes open and rolled to the side before the voice finished the countdown. But when he was laying on his back again, the knife he only caught a glimpse of before was still right in front of his forehead, "Ehhh…" Nagisa gulped silently while keeping his body completely still, a sweat drop rolled down his forehead.

"Not bad kid.", a man with back hair and dark blue eyes smirked down at him while dangling the knife above him with only two fingers holding it. "Good job on keeping yourself calm, the idea of pretending to still be unconscious and observe was good, but you haven't seen enough unconscious people to know how they breathe and you still lack the amount of self-control, while you did try to keep your breathing even and your body relaxed, you were still too nervous, just look, you're sweating."

"Why are you telling me this?" Nagisa asked slowly when the knife swung above his nose as his eyes warily followed the path of the knife before he saw the blue scale on the man's hand, "You're a dragon?"

"Just felt like it." The man shrugged and pulled his knife back, "You have potential kid, but you lack experience." The man smirked while getting back to the fire while putting a rabbit on a stick. "And yeah, I'm a water dragon just like you kid."

"What happened?" Nagisa asked warily after quickly getting back up and moving away from the man and the fire. If he hadn't been out for too long maybe he could still catch up with Kaede.

"I found you head-down in a river drowning and you've been out for a couple of days." The man said nonchalantly while putting the rabbit over the fire after skinning it.

"You're lying..." Nagisa shook his head and frowned as he stated calmly, "I'm still wearing the same clothes from before and they're not wet. My mana reserves are still exhausted, so my drop down the mountain can't be that long ago."

The man raised an eyebrow and eyed Nagisa a bit more interested this time, "Not bad. What else can you tell me?" The man asked while turning the rabbit and adding grounded herbs to it.

"I don't have a single scratch on me… so I'll assume I probably never landed. The cliff was about 600 meters deep, for you to have caught me mid-air, you've probably already been watching from before I started to fall. And you have to be a rather high ranked mage or combatant, otherwise, you wouldn't have made it. Of course, there's always the chance that you were just passing by underneath, saw me fall and caught me, but I highly doubt that." Nagisa guessed while running everything through his head, "And for you to actually catch me… I'd love to assume that you're just a nice person, but I'd rather say that you either know me or want something from me. But since I can't think of what a high-rank mage or combatant would want from me and considering that you're from my tribe I would guess that you know me."

"Heh… you grew up into quite an interesting kid, huh? I did catch you mid-air, and you've been out for about 4 hours." The man snickered slightly before looking at Nagisa with a rather complicated look in his eyes, "you're right, I know you. Or rather I knew your parents when your mother was pregnant with you."

"Hmm?" Nagisa eyed him suspiciously, obviously not taking his word for it. "That's odd… how come you never visited us then?" Nagisa questioned.

"Cheeky brat…" The man shook his head with a smirk, "You don' even know your parents."

"What are you talking about?" Nagisa was starting to believe him but continued to act, "They're probably looking for me right now!"

"I saw your mother die on the day you were born kid, just stop, it's better for both of us." The man spoke with a grieving tone while the look in his eyes darkened.

"…" Nagisa Just stared at him and didn't answer.

"… Aren't you a little bit too paranoid for your age? The glove on your left hand, the one covering the grey scale, I made that with your father." The man sighed when he realized that Nagisa wasn't going to talk.

"…" Nagisa still didn't talk but raised an eyebrow at him.

"Hehe… you're taking after your mother for sure." The man shook his head and continued, "Have you ever tried to take the glove off?"

Nagisa lightly shook his head while looking at his left hand.

"Wait seriously?" The man looked at him weirdly, "Never?"

"I was told not to." Nagisa answered in a deadpan while shrugging with his shoulders.

"And in all these 10 years you never got curious and tried to take it off?" The man asked raising his voice slightly for the first time.

"Well… what's the point? I can feel that there's another scale underneath, it's not like looking at it will give me any more answers." Nagisa shrugged again.

"Weird kid..." The man commented, "Well at least you're talking now, try to take your glove off." The man commanded.

"Why?" Nagisa asked.

"Because you won't be able to." The man deadpanned, "the glove is sealed, only those who are granted permission can use or take it off you, in short, your father and me."

"How long have you been watching me?" Nagisa pulled on his glove and it really wasn't coming off, when he tried it suddenly felt like it was connected to his skin! Nagisa finally sighed and dropped his façade.

"Every now and then since you were 5." The man answered while adding a few blocks of wood into the fire. "Your parents asked me to watch over you."

"Then why didn't you help me when I was caught?!" Nagisa's brain was starting to overload with new information and he had so many questions.

"I promised to watch over not babysit you kid." The man rolled his eyes while taking a sip from a flask he had on his belt, "I saved you when you were going to die, I consider my job done kid."

"What about the other girl?" Nagisa finally asked the question that was bugging him the most. He was ready to get back to the prison if Kaede got caught.

"Don't worry she got out." The man answered after taking another sip, "she's probably back in her tribe by now."

"So she made it." Nagisa had a complicated smile on his face. While he was glad and relieved that Kaede managed to escape, but it also meant that he probably won't see her again.

"Don't make that face, she got picked up by someone she knew." The man said, "She was begging him to look for you but he just forcefully took her with him."

"How do you know?" Nagisa asked. Hearing that still made him feel a lot better.

"I was eavesdropping." The man admitted with no sign of shame at all, "She seems to really like you."

"I guess." Nagisa sighed while putting this matter aside for now, he had more questions, "You said you saw my mother die? How did she die?".

"She was killed after forcefully giving birth to you 3 months early." The man sighed while taking a big gulp from his flask, "We were traveling in a group of three, your father, your mother, and me. Your parents were good friends of mine, best friends even. We were being hunted by a huge group of people for months already when it happened. It was getting hard for your mother to keep running with you getting bigger and bigger. On that day we were ambushed and were having a hard time to get away. Your mother knew that she wouldn't be able to escape anymore, she'd only drag us down with her. Maybe you've heard from your aunt, but your mother was an excellent mage and excelled in healing spells. So using almost all of her mana, she managed to give birth to you, created and cast a spell on you that would imitate a mother's womb to keep you alive for another 3 months until you have grown enough to be exposed to the outside world. She barely got a glimpse of you before we were found again. She handed you to your father before heading straight into our pursuers to buy us time to escape with the little amount of mana she had left."

"You're terrible at storytelling…" Nagisa grimaced, it was supposed to be quite an emotional story but the monotone way it was told just killed the mood.

"Well excuse me that I don't like to be reminded." The man groaned irritatedly while putting his flask back onto his belt.

"What about my father?"

"He left for revenge after being sure that you'd survive, leaving you with your aunt and asking me to watch over you. He's never been seen ever since…".

"..." Nagisa gulped while taking a deep breath to ease the pain he was feeling in his chest, he wasn't sure about his father, but his mother had loved him… even before he had been born. And even though he didn't really know her, it still hurt to hear about her death and everything she had done to keep him safe, even if the story was told in a rather cold way, "Sorry for bringing that up…"

"Your parents died and you're sorry for me?" The man asked while letting out a huff and raising an eyebrow.

"Well, I barely know them, you seemed to be really close to them for them to allow you to travel with them while my mother was pregnant. It's probably harder on you than it will ever be on me." Nagisa answered while pointing at his flask.

"He… now you're acting like your idiot of a father." The man laughed and shook his hand while ripping off a leg of the rabbit, "here you go kid, bet you haven't had a decent meal in a while."

"Thanks… so what do you want from me?" Nagisa asked while accepting the rabbit leg and biting into it.

"I thought your conclusion was either I knew you OR I wanted something from you?" The man wondered.

"You've watched me for years now and only interfered when you absolutely had, so I can safely assume that you either didn't want me to know of your existence or were trying not to interfere with my life." Nagisa explained while taking another bite of the meat, the flavor of an actually decently cooked meal was melting his mistreated tastebuds, "But now you've not only revealed yourself to me but also took the time to answer my questions and you are even feeding me right now. So something I did just now or before changed your mind or made you decide on something?"

"You're a fascinating kid you know that?" The man smiled and nodded, "You're mostly right, but I wasn't trying to hide my existence or trying to stay out of your life, I was waiting for you to be old enough." The man explained and Nagisa nodded after thinking about it. "But even though you're only 10, you're a lot more mature than I thought you were. You handled the information I just gave you fairly well and didn't instantly seek revenge like your father." The man complimented him.

"Don't misunderstand… I will try to avenge my parents and I will ask you to tell me who these people hunting you were, but I'll let you judge if I'm ready or not. Before that, I'd rather not know before I do something stupid…" Nagisa grit his teeth while finally showing some of his bottled-up anger he had been hiding.

"That's still good enough, you know your limits, unlike your father." The man nodded approvingly. "Here's the deal, I'm going to train you."

"In what?" Nagisa wondered.

"I'm going to train you as a combatant." The man offered.

"I'm already a mage, I was told doing both was a bad idea." Nagisa shook his head, he had taken quite a liking in magic ever since he had started so he was planning to stay as one instead of switching over to a combatant like he wanted to in the beginning.

"That's correct for most people, but you have that." The man said while grabbing Nagisa's left wrist and pulling off his glove with ease after a dark blue aura flashed out of it, "Do you know why your father and I made this glove to conceal it?"

"No, not really." Nagisa shook his head, "I never really thought about it this way." Nagisa admitted.

"Kid, that's the mark of a shadow dragon." The man told him in a serious tone, "There were only five noted in our history before you. And all of then changed the world in one way or another."

"What makes them so special?" Nagisa raised his eyebrow not really convinced, it sounded rather absurd really.

"There's always only one. For the next one to be born, the older one has to die first." The man continued.

"Ok… and how does that have anything to do with me being able to be a combatant?" Nagisa questioned still rather unimpressed. All that legend talk didn't really rile him up at the moment. Maybe he would find it fascinating if he hadn't just survived a 600-meter free fall, lost his little sister and was told how his parents had died within a few hours!

"Lame kid… do you know why it's not suggested to try to be both a mage and a combatant at the same time?" The man rolled his eyes and asked.

"Because people end up being mediocre in both." Nagisa gave the answer he had learned from Kaede.

"That's correct but do you know why?" The man asked and Nagisa shook his head.

"It's because no man or dragon can have more than one element." The man explained, "It might sound surprising, but even the aura of combatants need elements, the same ones that mages absorb to increase their mana. People end up only mediocre in both because they have to share the elements they absorb between their mana and aura pool, therefore, limiting the growth of both."

"I see, that makes sense." Nagisa nodded, that part finally made more sense to him. While Kaede was quite a good teacher, her knowledge was still being limited by her age.

"But you're different, you have TWO affinities. Shadow and water." The man told him. "And with a little work, you'll be able to absorb both elements at the same time. So you don't have to worry about sharing your element."

"There are no other people with two affinities?" Nagisa frowned and questioned.

"No, there are also exceptions, but they are extremely rare. That's why it's only suggested not to train yourself in both and not forbidden. But you're still a different case." The man answered. "So, what's your answer?"

"Can you also teach me magic?" Nagisa asked instead while nagging the last piece of meat from the rabbit leg before throwing it back into the fire.

"Unfortunately, no. But I assume you already know how to meditate. Just keep increasing your mana, we'll find a way after I've taught you all the basics of being a combatant."

"Alright, what do I call you?" Nagisa thought about it for a while and finally agreed.

"Hmm… I guess you can call me Kagero."

"One last thing… is there any way to tell that girl I was with that I'm still alive?" Nagisa hesitated for a second but decided to ask.

"I'm afraid no, I would deliver a message for you, but since she's probably already back in wind dragon territory and I'm from the water tribe, I won't be able to reach her without being taken down as an invader." Kagero shook his head.

"Kaede…" Nagisa muttered her name while letting out a silent sigh. "I hope she'll be fine…"

"She was a high-level stage 2 mage right?" Kagero asked just to be sure.

"Yeah, but she had suppressed her progress for more than half a year already." Nagisa answered with a weirdly proud smile on his face.

"Hmm? Don't worry kid, then I'm sure you'll meet her again." Kagero assured him.

"Why is that?" Nagisa wondered.

"If what you said is true, then she's a prodigy. People like her won't stay in their tribe forever, as long as she doesn't die too young, she'll make a name for herself." Kagero explained.

"I see… guess I'll have to work hard so I don't fall behind too much when I see her again. What kind of combatant do you want me to be, Shisho?" Nagisa asked with newly found determination and motivation.

"I'm a spear master so I'll teach you how to handle one. But I want you to find a second weapon." Kagero said

"Why?" Nagisa wondered.

"As a cover, lances aren't very popular so there aren't many spear users. But because of that, the moves of the few spear masters that exist are also known by quite a few. You don't want your mother's murderers to know of your connection with me before you're ready to face them."

"Hmm, do you have any suggestions?" Nagisa nodded in agreement before asking.

"I'd say we'll wait until we see what the first two **Unique Skills** of your other scale are." Kagero suggested.

"Understood, Shisho." Nagisa nodded after taking a deep breath, "When do we start?"

 **Time skip incoming in one or two chapters! And here's also my first important OC in this chapter Nagisa's teacher Kagero! How did you like the first look into Nagisa's background story? If you think it's rather shallow don't be too quick to judge yet, there's a lot more to it :D! But just like Nagisa, you guys will have to wait until he's ready for more details.**

 **What do you think of this chapter? How did you like Kagero? Please tell me in the reviews :D I will have a lot of OC's in this story so I need all the feedback I can get!**

 **And as always, thank you very much for your support and I'll see you in the next chapter ;)!**


	8. Chapter 7

Nagisa was lying on the side of the river and desperately gasping for air only wearing his underwear. His entire body was completely wet while he dragged himself closer to the shore.

"That was pathetic, kid." Kagero hovered next to Nagisa while looking down at him. Nagisa had found out that Kagero was a stage 8, 2-star spear master! The ranking of combatants was slightly different from the one of the mages. While they both had 9 stages, combatants didn't have 9 levels but 3 stars for each stage. But that didn't mean that it was easier to be a combatant! It was way harder to gain a star than to raise a level! On top of that, combatants had to go through a tiny breakthrough every time they gained a star, basically an easier and less painful version of a stage breakthrough.

Combatants and mages gained the ability to hover and fly around once they reach the seventh stage of their class. Kagero hadn't told Nagisa the reason behind it saying that it was still too early for him to worry about that.

Right now, Nagisa was collapsed on the ground with his entire back showing an unnatural red color. "You're crazy!" Nagisa cried out after finally catching his breath, "That's just not possible!" Nagisa complained as he carefully touched his back while hissing out of pain.

"Is that so?" Kagero raised an eyebrow while walking towards a 500-meter tall waterfall. He stood there for a second before swiftly jumping up against the stream using only a few rocks as footing.

"…" Nagisa lips twitched a little when Kagero nonchalantly turned around and looked down at him from the top of the waterfall as if he was mocking him.

* * *

As soon as they had started Nagisa's training, Kagero had grabbed Nagisa after ordering him to take his clothes off and brought him to this waterfall.

Without Nagisa even understanding what Kagero had been doing, he had smashed a huge rock into thin long pieces before knocking them into the wall behind the waterfall creating a sort of rock climbing wall under the stream of the waterfall. He had then grabbed Nagisa again and had dropped him on a rock about 5 meters away from the top and had told him to climb back up against the stream.

Completely unprepared, Nagisa had gotten washed away by the stream instantly and had landed on his back 500 meters deeper on the water surface. "You're a stage 8 spear master! That's not the same!" Nagisa continued to complain.

"I didn't use a single drop of my aura there." Kagero retorted emotionlessly, "I only used my physical prowess just like you."

"…" Nagisa rolled his eyes and sighed, even if Kagero was a being a major jerk right now, he could tell that he wasn't lying, "What's the point of climbing a waterfall anyway?!" Nagisa instead asked.

"What do you think are the most important things for a combatant or a mage?" Kagero asked after floating back down to Nagisa.

"Aura and mana?" Nagisa guessed, raising an eyebrow.

"That's not entirely right." Kagero said while shaking his head, "See it like this, aura and mana are merely the fuel for combatants and mages, but before you can efficiently utilize your fuel, you need a decent container to conserve the fuel.

"Mages train their mind and combatants their body..." Nagisa suddenly remembered what Kaede had told him back in the cell.

"Correct! Your body and mind are the containers for your aura and mana! The better the container, the more fuel you can store in it! If you mindlessly try to add fuel into a container that is too small, the container will crack and break eventually." Kagero nodded at Nagisa's answer.

"So climbing this waterfall is to train my body? Isn't there a less dangerous way to do that?" Nagisa complained while getting back on his feet.

"Of course there is, but do you think a good container is all you need to be a great combatant or mage?" Kagero asked and Nagisa shook his head.

"Well you need talent as well I guess." Nagisa answered while slightly stretching his aching body.

"That is also correct, but what is talent?" Kagero asked again, "What decides if someone has talent or not?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" Nagisa frowned out of confusion.

"I think you already know since you've been deemed as talentless for half your lifetime." Kagero smirked at Nagisa while reminding him.

"… Element compatibility." Nagisa grimaced at the topic.

"Yes, your compatibility with an element decides if you have talent or not. But unpolished talent is still nothing!" Kagero nodded.

"But my compatibility was terrible!" Nagisa retorted, "And I'm still doing decently well!"

"That is not true Nagisa." Kagero shook his head with an awkward smile this time, "the test you took back in your tribe was flawed.".

"Huh? Why?" Nagisa frowned slightly. He was having a really bad feeling.

"It's because of your second scale, you took the test while both scales were in effect making them neglect each other. You probably subconsciously deactivated your left scale when you were taught how to meditate. Try to feel it yourself, when you put your focus on your right scale, the water elements around you should become a lot clearer and easier to spot." Kagero explained.

"You're right! ...So you're telling me." Nagisa had a blank look on his face after he confirmed what Kagero had said.

"Yes, your test turned out horribly because back then you had no idea how to stop the influence of your second scale. That's why your numbers were so terrible." Kagero laughed awkwardly, "The glove we gave you only added to it. You can probably feel the elements even better now since the glove is removed. It also had the effect to suppress your talents."

"WHY!?" Nagisa cried out in confusion and anger, "Why would you do that?!"

"Your parents had a lot of enemies kid, and a lot of them know that your mother was pregnant when she died. While a lot of them think that you died with her, we still wanted to prevent you from catching any attention. Both your parents were considered geniuses so the chance that you would be just as talented was rather high and we wanted to hide that."

"What is my actual compatibility then?" Nagisa asked rather eagerly. Being shunned and ignored because of this was a childhood trauma for him after all. Even if he had come to accept that rather well.

"91, we call people with a number of 90 or higher _children of the elements_ , your father took the test personally before he left you. Frankly, you're a genius, the highest number the water tribe has seen in the last 3000 years." Kagero sighed when Nagisa lowered his head after his eyes had widened, "Must have been hard huh?"

"Hehehe… that's just so..." Nagisa shook his head after letting out a sad chuckle, "But I guess I should be happy now huh? Damn… and I thought I didn't care what others think of me for years now." Nagisa mocked himself quietly.

"You did good kid, be proud." Kagero placed his hand on Nagisa's head and ruffled his hair, "But now back to the topic, sulking won't do you anything, you said that one needs talent to go far, that is correct, but talent has to be polished."

"How do you polish compatibility?" Nagisa wondered while quickly adjusting to the change of topic, Kagero was right, sulking wouldn't help him right now.

"What is compatibility?" Kagero asked again.

Nagisa really liked Kagero's way of teaching, instead of just telling him what he needed to know, he made Nagisa think for himself, he let him come to his own conclusion before expanding his knowledge based on that.

"How clearly you can sense an element." Nagisa answered.

"Good, and what else do you need except a strong container, plenty of fuel and a good sense for your element?"

"…" Nagisa frowned while working his brain, but nothing was coming to him, "I can't think of anything else." Nagisa shook his head when he gave up and looked to Kagero so he would explain.

"Knowledge of your element!" Kagero said, "Because you can sense your element better, it is also easier for you to understand your element. When you truly understand your element, you can do so much more with them, just like the way you used your **Unique Skill** when you tried to jump over the cliff. You did that because you know that water expands in volume when it turns into steam, that's what we call knowledge of your element. I'm asking you to climb a waterfall because while you climb it, you will also notice how the water changes with the way you act! Try to understand these changes and use them to your advantage. That is why you're climbing a waterfall instead of simply training your body."

"Yes, Shisho!" Nagisa nodded determinedly after hearing Kagero's explanation, "But when do I meditate?" Nagisa wondered.

"At night." Kagero answered, "You will meditate at night when your body is so exhausted that you can't move anymore and while you meditate, you will also try to understand your other element, shadow."

"Wait… how am I supposed to meditate if you want me to focus on the shadow element? I meditate by absorbing and filtering water elements and adding them to my pool." Nagisa frowned and asked.

"Try to connect to both elements at the same time." Kagero suggested.

"… is that possible?" Nagisa questioned, "And when do I sleep?!" He suddenly realized in terror! If he was meditating at night, he'd barely have time to sleep!

"You will be meditating instead of sleeping, I know a few mages who do that, it will be strange at first, but you will get used to it." Kagero said in a monotone.

"Huh?! Even you are still sleeping!" Nagisa complained.

"Well I'm no mage, am I now? And you can't afford to meditate during daytime so that's your only option. Or you just give up on being a mage." Kagero taunted.

"Urgh…fine…" Nagisa sighed unwillingly before agreeing.

"Good, now up you go!" Kagero nodded before grabbing Nagisa again.

"H-Hey! Wait a seco… WOAAAAAHH!" _SPLASH!_

* * *

Nagisa was gritting his teeth like crazy while using every ounce of strength left in his body to pull himself up the last meter of the waterfall. His entire body was shaking, and his body was struggling to move upwards while the raging stream was trying to knock Nagisa back down.

Letting out a deep groan while keeping his mouth tightly shut, Nagisa forced the last bit of strength out of his body and pulled himself up the last rock and into a cave behind the waterfall. "Ha… Ha… ha…" Nagisa panted heavily while rolling deeper into the cave so that he wouldn't accidentally get knocked down again.

"Not bad, I thought you'd need at least a week before managing the 10 meters. Guess all that fieldwork back in the tribe were of some use after all." Kagero stated while adding more wood to the campfire he was sitting next to.

"Ha… half a year… of mining… every single… day… wasn't that easy… either… Ha… ha…" Nagisa grinned slightly while still gasping for air.

"I see." Kagero nodded approvingly but then frowned slightly, "But if that's what you did for the 5 months in there you should be more capable than you are now."

"Lack of… nutrition." Nagisa rolled his eyes, "Not exactly… effective… huuuu."

"Right… forgot about that." Kagero nodded again, "Since you managed the 10 meters, we'll go with 15 tomorrow."

"HUH?!" Nagisa exclaimed after barely catching his breath again, "I thought I'm done with this!" Nagisa whined a little.

"You thought it was over?" Kagero raised an eyebrow and looked at Nagisa as if he was questioning his intelligence, "The goal is to climb the entire 500 meters within an hour kid, you took half a day for merely 10 meters today. I'm not teaching you anything else before you can do that."

"… You're kidding." Nagisa almost begged when he said that.

"What did I teach you this morning? You need a good container! Yes, you are rather fit. But that's only compared to civilians, not combatants. You still have a long way to go kid." Kagero smirked while petting Nagisa on his head. "That's enough for today, rest for another 5 minutes and we'll eat dinner, make sure to stuff yourself, you will need the energy."

"Yes… Shisho…" Nagisa groaned in despair while letting his body flop back to the ground.

"I prepared a medical bath that will help your muscles to recover faster. You'll meditate in it the entire night." Kagero told him before walking back into the cave.

While Nagisa was struggling with the waterfall, Kagero had created a new cave with two entrances behind the waterfall. One was the one Nagisa had used, hidden behind the waterfall, while the other one led into the mountain mainly so that Kagero could go hunting and gathering stuff without interrupting Nagisa's training.

Dinner was a feast! It had been a really long time since Nagisa had had a nutritious meal that also tasted good. Of course, his opinion might be biased since he hadn't tasted any flavors in his mouth over the last 5 months.

After resting for another 30 minutes to let the food digest a little, Kagero told Nagisa to climb into a huge pot filled with a greenish liquid. "That's the medical bath?" Nagisa eyes the color warily, "It looks and smells disgusting."

"You can either get in or climb the waterfall with aching muscles tomorrow, it's your choice." Kagero said slightly annoyed.

"I never said I'm not getting in." Nagisa retorted while climbing into the pot and sitting down in it. To his surprise, the water was really comfortable, it had the perfect temperature! "Ehh, Shisho, won't the water get cold overnight?"

"Use your **Unique Skill** to heat it back up when it gets cold, just a warning, because of some herbs I added, the water turns cold instantly instead of slowly cooling down." Kagero deadpanned, "Meditate and focus your mind on you left scale and get comfortable with your second element."

"These herbs weren't necessary, were they?" Nagisa frowned.

"They were, I had to make sure you don't fall asleep." Kagero explained in all seriousness, "It will also train your awareness of your surrounding while meditating."

"How high is my compatibility with the shadow element?" Nagisa wondered while getting into a comfortable position in his pot.

"You can't rate that, but if you really want to, it's over 100. You are the sole user of that element, there isn't a single other person who has the slightest bit of compatibility with the shadows, you could say that it's your element." Kagero smirked while answering Nagisa's question.

"Over a hundred?!" Nagisa yelled surprised, "Isn't 100 the upper limit?"

"For the other four elements, yes, but that's different. Like I said, you own the element. If someone with a compatibility of 90-100 is called _A child of the element,_ I guess you would be _THE child of the element_. It's already showing in your behavior, why do you think you like corners that much?"

"Huh?"

"When you're asleep, you subconsciously pull yourself into a corner because you feel safer and more comfortable there." Kagero pointed out.

"I do that?" Nagisa's eyes widened in disbelieve.

"Do you not realize that you wake up in a different spot than you fall asleep in?" Kagero sighed while rolling his eyes.

"…you're right, I never thought about that." Nagisa said fascinated.

Kagero held the bridge of his nose while shaking his head, "Have fun meditating kid, I'll be sleeping right outside the cave."

"Why outside the cave?" Nagisa wondered, wouldn't it be cold out there?

"I don't want to be waked up by your screams when you suddenly realize that you're freezing." Kagero deadpanned while walking away, "Good night."

"Why would I scream?" Nagisa cocked his head to the side and wondered when his eyes suddenly widened, "WOAAH WHAT THE HELL?!" Nagisa screamed while quickly using his _Status Control_ to reheat the water!

The water was a lot harder to heat up than regular water and Nagisa was starting to see what Kagero was doing. Trying to connect to both elements and filtering one of them simultaneously was a lot harder than just doing multiple things at once. It was the perfect training to strengthen Nagisa's mind at the same time.

On top of that, he had to pay attention to the pot he was sitting in! Because if he didn't remember to heat it up every now and then, he would suddenly be bathing in ice cold water! And heating the water will also require him to use his **Unique Skill** , that way he won't get rusty with using his mana.

Nagisa had to admit that it was a very efficient way to train. But it was also extremely cruel and tiring…

 **So Nagisa's training begins! There will be a time skip between this and the next chapter and then Nagisa will be heading into the world! Hope you're excited for it!**

 **What do you guys think about the training method Kagero's using? Tell me about it in the reviews!**

 **And as always, thank you so much for your support and I'll see you in the next chapter ;)! You are all amazing!**


	9. Chapter 8

"Hup, here, and there we go!" A faint voice was audible behind the loud splashing sound of a huge waterfall. If someone paid close attention, they could see the silhouette of a young teenage boy moving up the stream with incredible speed!

From far away it looked like the heavy stream was pushing the boy and he was simply riding the stream upwards.

The boy was about 1,50, had long sky-blue hair reaching all the way to his back, his naked upper body was rather slim but looked fairly sturdy! And while he was moving up the waterfall, he had his left arm held behind his back the entire time!

"Yo Shisho! I'm done!" The boy cheered while dashing through the water curtain of the waterfall and landing in a cave.

"5 minutes and 12 seconds, one armed, not bad Nagisa." A voice echoed out of the cave while a man with dark hair and dark blue eyes came into the light! That's right, the man was Kagero and the boy was Nagisa who was now 13 years old!

"Heh, I remember when you set the goal of climbing the waterfall in 30 minutes with both arms." Nagisa rubbed his nose while putting on his shirt.

"And I still remember the boy who whined that it was impossible." Kagero countered while ruffling Nagisa's hair, "But yeah, I'll admit, you're doing way better than I expected."

"Hehehe." Nagisa grinned cheekily while grabbing a wooden stick at the side of the wall, "I'll go practice the spear moves you taught me!" Nagisa told him before running off.

Nagisa had become a lot closer to Kagero in these three years. He had accepted him as a parenting figure that he had never had. Kagero did a spectacular job of taking care of him while training and teaching him everything he knew. It was something Nagisa had never experienced.

In the three years, Nagisa had been doing the same training every single day! It was about a week in when Nagisa realizes that he had gained the first bit of aura while climbing the waterfall! It turned out that aura was literally physical energy! It could be gained by simple weight training in an area with enough elements!

Of course, people had developed new methods that were a lot easier over time! But Kagero had wanted Nagisa to understand the basis of aura! If gaining mana was like carefully extracting the bits and parts you needed out of the elements and then distilling them before letting them flow into your mana pool, gaining aura was basically gathering and running the elements through a filter which was a combatant's body! While the elements slightly enhanced a combatant's body while running through it, the body also worked as a filter to sort out the bits and pieces that were needed to gain aura! And when the filter process was done, the remains simply flowed into the aura pool while the unneeded part was dispersed off in the form of sweat.

After two years of non-stop training, Nagisa was now a stage 3, 1-star spear user and a stage 2 level 9 mage. His work as a combatant had improved a lot more since he had an experienced teacher guiding him in that part. With magic, he had to figure out everything all by himself and it slowed down his progress drastically. But according to Kagero, he was still above average!

Nagisa's aura was of the shadow element just as planned while his mana remained water natured. Kagero had also taught Nagisa his own spear style Nagisa had been able to climb the entire waterfall within 30 minutes after about one and a half years.

Now to the sad and awkward part… even though Nagisa was a stage 2 and almost stage 3 mage, he still only knew the one spell Kaede had taught him years ago… the rank 1 healing spell, _Healing Touch_.

Nagisa started to swing his wooden stick around as soon as he got out of the cave. Kagero's spear style had been very different! Unlike usual people who base their style on their element, Kagero had studied all the elements and had tried to create a style that included all of them! Sadly, he only ended up with an incomplete offensive move based on the wind element and a technique to handle the spear based on the water element!

Even though he tried to teach Nagisa both of them, Nagisa was only able to learn his water-based technique. The wind-based move was hard for him to understand, the fact that it was still unfinished only made it worse.

An earth or fire-based move or technique was something Kagero couldn't figure out at all. The wind element was the most similar element to water when it came to its characteristics, while earth and fire still seemed completely odd to both Nagisa and Kagero.

The water-based technique shined in its continuity and stacking nature! It was an all-rounded technique that allowed the user to shift between offense and defense at will while maintaining a barrage of swift and never-ending strikes or blocks. The highlight of the technique was that the hits and blocks got heavier with every swing the user made, just like how waves push each other to create a greater wave in the ocean! This was also the one Nagisa had the most success in. Kagero called this style the _Raging Billows._

The wind-based move only focused on two factors, its speed and sharpness! Using his entire body, the user would start to twist it along with the spear while focusing his aura at the tip of the spear creating a drill like shape before charging at his enemy faster than the human eye could follow and pierce through everything that was standing in his way!

But that was all in theory! While Nagisa did manage to understand this move, it was still incomplete and impossible to control. He would always lose the grip of his spear, unable to stop the rotation of it, resulting in it escaping out of his hands and himself also spinning through the air and eventually crashing into the ground or a tree.

"Alright…" Nagisa took a deep breath before a dark gray aura started to spread out of his body before his left scale started to glow and the aura started to take a dark blue color while also looking smoother. Nagisa then started to move around while spinning his stick around him in a defensive manner. His movements looked smooth and fluent as if his feet were gliding on the ground while the spear automatically danced around him.

Nagisa then took a deep breath before kicking a nearby tree with his right foot causing it to shake as leaves started to drop from it. An intense light appeared in Nagisa's eye as he gathered all his focus and took an offensive stance. His arms turned into a blur along with his spear while leaves magically disappeared from the air.

The entire process only took a few seconds before Nagisa stopped his arms while panting heavily and putting his weight on his stick with its end stabbed into the ground. On the head of the spear, a bunch of leaves were neatly strung together.

"… 34, 14 where I missed the center. I could keep building up more power in my strikes, but it would sacrifice my accuracy…" Nagisa frowned while catching his breath while the remaining leaves finally reached the ground. "Now…" Nagisa quickly calmed himself while removing the leaves from his stick before the scale on his left hand started to glow again. His dark blue aura turned back to its original gray color before changing into a dark green. The movement of the aura also seemed sharper than before. "First I have to fix my landing before trying to keep my spear under control." Nagisa muttered to himself.

He took another deep breath before firmly gripping his spear and leaping into the air! After reaching his highest point, Nagisa quickly kicked a nearby branch to change his momentum and charged downwards while starting to spin his body forming a drill like whirlwind to surround his body! But within barely a second, the whirlwind started to lose its form before shooting out everywhere and completely ruining Nagisa's balance!

Nagisa quickly let go of his spear while his body was flung through the air like a feather in a storm. Unable to regain his balance, Nagisa crashed into the ground while letting out a painful groan. After resting for a while he slowly sat up and started to heal his wounds and went to find his missing spear or rather stick after he was done.

After another few tries to keep the _Piercing Gale_ under control but without success, Nagisa gave up and rolled his aching shoulder blades before heading back into the cave. The stick that he was using as a spear replacement was already broken.

"Do you have a mission tonight?" Kagero asked without even looking in Nagisa's direction when he walked back in.

"Na… I'm already catching their attention with my streak of successful missions, have to stay low for another while." Nagisa shook his head while grabbing an apple from the pile next to the fireplace.

"Good, it's about time for your graduation exam." Kagero smiled while putting a hand on his shoulder, "It's time you get into the world and start seeing things for yourself. And you finally need to catch up with your magic progression. There's not much more I can teach you as a combatant, I've taught you all the basics and my best moves. All there's left is for you to develop it into your own style."

"You mean I can…?" Nagisa's eyes sparkled with excitement for a second but quickly turned dark again.

"Yeah, but you know the drill, only the mage and the soldiers." Kagero warned him before letting him go, "I'll come with you for this one, just in case."

"Don't worry… I know." Nagisa's narrowed his eyes while his left scale started glowing again while the grey aura covered his entire body. With the aura settling again, Nagisa's warm blue irises had turned dark grey and emotionless while his sky-blue hair had also turned into a light shade of grey, short and spiky. Nagisa then grabbed a 50 cm long pitch-black dagger and fastened its sheath on his belt. "I'm off Shisho." Nagisa said before simply sinking into the ground and disappearing with another flare on his scale.

"This kid… it's like he becomes another person." Kagero frowned and shook his head slightly before also heading out of the cave.

* * *

"Guess someone came before you." Kagero stated while looking at the scene before him. Nagisa and he were standing in front of the slave prison Nagisa had been held in once. But instead of the prison, all that was left was a pile of rubble and ashes, there was a 200-meter-long split in the ground where the prison used to stand along with several thousand corpses spread around the place. In the middle of this mess was a body pinned against the remains of the old prison. Nagisa recognized that getup, it was the mage that was hunting him and Kaede down when they tried to escape!

"Who did this..." Nagisa cringed and frowned at the sight, "Not that they were good people, but this is a little bit too brutal." He shook his head, "Especially with the mage, it doesn't look like intentional torture so whoever killed him was an amateur for sure… they probably missed his vital points several times before managing to finish him." Nagisa concluded after observing the man's corpse. There were deep marks on his arms and legs from the ropes that were tying him down, so he must have struggled a lot before dying. The knife wounds on his body were all around his left chest area, but the stabs weren't clean and missed the heart 3 times before hitting its target. which is either caused by an incredibly dull knife or just an unsteady or even shivering hand or just extremely poor knifework.

"But what's done is done I guess… what about the graduation test now?" Nagisa let out a small sigh before turning back to Kagero.

"You know it was less of a test but supposed to be a sign of you moving on." Kagero shook his head and chuckled, "Since someone did your job already you simply pass."

"Fine by me." Nagisa nodded while the gray coloring in his irises and hair slowly started to fade while his hair grew longer again, "So what's the plan?" Nagisa asked after turning his eyes back to Kagero.

"Get into Valm and apply for the dawn academy. It's currently the best school for dragon tribe combatants and mages, especially mages." Kagero told him while getting a few things out of his bag, "You'll need some decent clothes, see it as a graduation gift." He said before handing Nagisa a set of clothes.

The set consisted of some black pants and brown boots, a white shirt with a dark blue blazer and some fingerless gloves, "The gloves are similar to your old ones, just without the talent suppressing and that you're able to take them off as well now." Kagero explained, "Take this as well." Kagero handed him a hair tie, "I still suggest to just cut it, but you're also right that it provides better cover for your other identity. I don't have the money to make you your own spear, so you'll have to settle with the dagger I made you."

"You're… not coming with me?" Nagisa took the things after spacing out for a second. His eyes were getting slightly red.

"Cut it out kid." Kagero sighed, "I will come check on you every now and then, but I can't take you under my wing forever, you'll have to grow up eventually."

"I know Shisho…" Nagisa took a deep breath before slowly putting the things Kagero gave him on. "So… I'll see you around?"

"Yeah… when the time comes, you'll definitely see me around kid." Kagero smiled gently before ruffling Nagisa's hair, "Until then it's goodbye for now, I have some unfinished business I have to solve myself." He said before he leaped into the air and disappeared into the clouds.

"…Thank you, Shisho." Nagisa waited for a few seconds before he muttered and slightly bowing in the direction Kagero had gone to, "Guess I'm on my own again…" Nagisa took a deep breath. He was going to go wash himself under the waterfall, change into his new clothes and head towards the capital!

* * *

It wasn't Nagisa's first time in the capital. In the latter half of his three years training, he had been here quite often. But it was only under the disguise of his **Unique Skill,** this was the first time he had come here in his original appearance.

Since Nagisa was already a stage 3 combatant, his shadow scale had also rewarded him with 3 new **Unique skills** with the first one being _Illusion Shroud_. This ability allowed him to cast a realistic and even physical illusion on himself, but ONLY himself. He could change his features, height, and even voice! But there was one drawback, it only worked in the dark!

After getting familiar with this ability, Nagisa also discovered that he was able to imitate other element natures with it, but since the illusions were only as good as his own imagination, while his imitation of water natured aura was fairly decent, his wind nature imitation was rather horrible due to his lack of understanding of the element. Imitating the earth and fire elements were impossible for Nagisa since he couldn't even picture the element in his mind.

The capital named Valm was a huge city surrounded by city walls that were more than 30 meters tall! Of course, it was merely a joke for any decent Mage or Combatant, but it was incredibly effective against a normal human army.

Right now, Nagisa was strolling along the street while nibbling on a bun he had bought on his way. He knew where the dawn academy was, but if he remembered correctly, the new semester had already started more than 3 months ago! His best guess was that Kagero somehow managed to pull some strings here and there to allow him to enter in the middle of a school year. After all, having a stage 8, 2-star combatant owing you a debt was always welcome, no matter who you were.

Kagero had also gotten Nagisa his own ID card for both his fake and real identities when they first entered the capital more than a year ago, so Nagisa had no trouble getting into the city.

"Hey! Young lord!" Nagisa heard someone calling behind him but didn't give it any thought, "Hey! The young lord with blue hair!" The voice shouted again.

 _\- Is he talking to me?! –_

Nagisa wondered as he slowly turned around with a slightly confused frown on his face, "Are you calling me?" Nagisa asked skeptically.

"Of course! Who else would I be calling?" A man with a sharp and cunning looking face quickly walked towards Nagisa, "Are you on your own young lord?"

"Why do you ask?" Nagisa frown deepened as he continued to talk, his hand was already slowly moving toward the dagger strapped behind his waist even though it was forbidden to start a fight inside the city walls. In all the times he was in the capital, this was the first time a merchant actively tried to start a conversation with him.

"You see young lord! Our store had just received a new shipping of top-class magic crystals and weapons. I was thinking if you maybe had any interest in taking a look." The man asked with a fawning look on his sharp face. It looked so fake that Nagisa couldn't help but to cringe inwardly.

"Not really. Thank you for the offer." Nagisa quickly answered slightly overwhelmed and walked away without looking back despite the man's attempt to call him back. That was the first time he had ever experienced something like this!

 _\- …Ah, it's because of these new clothes. –_

Nagisa figured out after calming down after walking a fair distance. The new clothes that Kagero had gotten him as his graduation gift, were finely made and of high quality. And adding Nagisa's decent looks and his age, the merchant probably mistook him for a spoiled kid from a rich family walking around all alone and tried to rip him off by selling him some useless tools.

Being reminded of the clothes he was wearing made Nagisa uneasy again, he wasn't used to being dressed so fancily, but he knew why Kagero got him this outfit and the reasoning behind it was perfectly reasonable.

When he finally reached the address Kagero had given him, he was standing in front of a huge gate with two guards standing on each side of it. Inside the gate was a huge place that looked like a garden of a royal palace! There was a gold plated shield at the reception on the right side of the gate which stated _Dawn Academy_!

After all was only natural that he at least needed a decent appearance to fit into this so-called prestige school! What made it so very special was the fact that it was the very first academy that accepted both dragon and human students at the same time! It was known as the first step of humans and dragons being able to live with each other!

 **And Nagisa is all on his own again! Well at least for now, after all he's joining an academy to learn more about magic! Next chapter is going to be Nagisa's first school day! And naturally he's going to meet some new people! And I think you know who's finally making his debut in this story! ;)**

 **Tell me how you liked this chapter in the reviews! I'd love to know what you think about the time skip! What do you guys think happened to the prison? (Though I think I made it rather obvious)**

 **And as always, thank you so much for your support! Hope you enjoyed the chapter and I'll see you in the next chapter! ;)**


	10. Chapter 9

"Good morning, how can I help you?" Nagisa was greeted by a soothing voice as soon as he stepped in front of the reception. There was an elderly woman with a sweet smile sitting behind the wall of glass.

"Good morning, ehmm, I was told to come and apply here." Nagisa said slightly uncertain. While highly unlikely, it was still possible that Kagero simply didn't consider that the semester had already started a while ago.

"Ah, yes, I was told that we'd have a transfer student coming today." The woman answered to Nagisa's relieve, "Shiota Nagisa correct?"

"Ehh yes, this is my ID." Nagisa nodded and quickly slit his card through the gap to let her check it out.

"Mhmm… yupe that's right, please wait here for a second, I will call for someone to come pick you up." She nodded while returning his ID card. "He will take you to the principal to test your abilities and register, show you the dorm and your room and finally bring you to your class.

"Alright, thank you very much." Nagisa nodded and said politely before walking back to the gate and waiting.

"Such a sweet young boy… I hope he doesn't get bullied too badly." The woman sighed as she watched Nagisa disappear from her sight.

* * *

It didn't take long until a tall man dressed in a uniform walked towards the gate to pick Nagisa up. The uniform consisted of a dull silver colored blazer with black linings, a black shirt and some black pants. The logo of the academy, which was a golden rising sun rested proudly on his right chest. "Shiota Nagisa?" The man asked while eyeing Nagisa.

Nagisa simply nodded as he walked closer to the man, "Follow me." The man told him and turned around.

"Ehm, where are we going sir?" Nagisa asked while quickly chasing after him.

"No need to call me sir, I'm just a student like you." The man said.

"Huh? A student?!" Nagisa's eyes widened, the man looked at least 30 years old! How on earth was he still a student?

"Heh, after you graduate you have the choice of leaving and exploring the world or staying and working here while continuing your studies. Of course, you won't be taking the regular classes anymore. There will be teachers specifically chosen for you to guide you into higher grounds… Ah, what am I doing, it's still way too early for you." The man interrupted himself and shook his head.

The inside of the academy was even bigger than it looked! While Nagisa was silently following the man, he noticed that there were way too many buildings around this place. Some of them just looked like huge containers!

"Excuse me ehh, senpai," Nagisa asked and continued after the man turned his head towards him, "I've noticed that there are some strange buildings around here and all of them are labeled as training fields, why are there so many?" Nagisa wondered.

"Hmm, quite observant, aren't you?" The man raised an eyebrow in amusement, "These fields are the pride of our academy. We have mages to create and maintain different environments for these fields on a daily basis from forests to deserts, snowfields and even underwater."

"I see…" Nagisa nodded in amazement, "Are they open to all the students?"

"Of course not! Students can only enter under a teacher's supervision!" The man chuckled at Nagisa's question.

"Hmm." Nagisa nodded but was slightly disappointed, these training fields could have provided with him perfect training environments.

"We're here." The man nodded while holding the door for Nagisa, "I'm not permitted to enter, someone inside will take you to the principal's office." The man explained.

"Thank you." Nagisa nodded back and walked into the building. The building had a rather odd structure. The hallway behind the entrance was unnecessarily long and it led into a huge hall.

The secretary of the principal was already waiting for Nagisa when he reached the hall. She quickly explained to him what he would have to do in the entrance test while also explaining some key rules of the academy.

The principal's office was the only room on the top floor. To Nagisa's surprise, the principal looked rather young, maybe about Kagero's age. He had slightly dark red hair and an insanely bulky figure. The suit he had on him looked like it would explode with just a tiny movement of his. "Welcome to the dawn academy, Shiota Nagisa right?" The principal asked, he had a surprisingly gentle voice. "I am Akabane Shin, Principle of this academy."

"Thank you, sir." Nagisa bowed slightly, "it's an honor to be here."

"Heh, let's just get to it shall we?" Shin snickered silently, "Are you applying as a combatant or a mage?" he asked.

"As a mage sir." Nagisa replied.

"Is that right?" Shin seemed rather surprised, "Huh, I really assumed that you would be a combatant."

 _\- Eh? Oh right… probably because of Shisho… -_

Nagisa concluded, it was Kagero who got him into this place at the first place. "No sir, just a mage." Nagisa shook his head and replied. Since Nagisa came here to strengthen his ability as a mage Nagisa planned to keep his aura hidden.

"Alright, just put your hand on this crystal and infuse your mana into it." The principal shoved a transparent crystal towards Nagisa and said. It was an elementless mana crystal, these were quite rare and could contain all elements.

Nagisa did as he was told and with his mana entering the crystal, it started to give a faint blue color of itself, "Stage 2 Level 9, so you'll be entering the second grade, of course, once you've broken through you'll enter the third grade." The principal nodded and told Nagisa.

"Thank you, sir." Nagisa nodded as he pulled his arm back, "Ehh, I will need to stay in a dorm sir."

"Huh… so you need a room… that's a little troublesome." Shin frowned as he thought about it. Since Nagisa was entering in the middle of the semester, it was rather hard to find him a room in the dorm. The rooms here were shared by 2.

"I think I have an idea." Shin said as he started to explain. He had told him that there was still a place where he could stay. But when he mentioned it, he looked rather hesitant for some reason but Nagisa just brushed it off, he was probably imagining it anyway.

* * *

"Ehm senpai… are you sure this is a dorm?" Nagisa blinked a few times at stared at the building in front of him. After he got out, the man who led him towards the principal's office took him to his "dorm". But unlike the other dorms they had walked past, this one looked more like a tiny villa.

"Yes… the student living in here… is a, ehh, special case." He stuttered as if he was a little scared and nervous.

"The student? There's only one student living in this building?!" Nagisa deadpanned. Who the hell was he going to share a room, no villa with?!

"Well… he's the nephew of the principal, but he has some… bad habits. In the 3 months in this school, he had been moved from 6 rooms already. This is actually the principal's private building, and since we couldn't find another way to fix his problem, the principal decided to just lend his house to his nephew to live in.

"Huh… the principal's nephew huh…" Nagisa chuckled nervously… how bad must his habits be that even the principal was forced to move him out of a regular dorm?!

"Well, just introduce yourself and try to get along… I'll be off then." The man chuckled and instantly walked away as if he was escaping.

"… Oooookay?" Nagisa was completely overwhelmed by everything that was happening right now. All he knew was that he was standing in front of his supposedly "dorm", shared with the principal's nephew who was known for his rather nasty habits. "Here goes nothing…" Nagisa took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

"Yo! Not now uncle!" Nagisa heard a voice yell in response, it had a rather nonchalant and lax touch to it. But what in the hell was he supposed to do now? Yell back?

"Ehm… excuse me! I was told to come here! I'm supposed to move in!" Nagisa finally yelled after he knocked again without getting an answer.

"New roommate?" The voice sounded amused but not impressed and Nagisa had no idea how that was even possible! "Just a second!" Nagisa could hear a loud thud and then footsteps coming towards the door.

 _\- Did he just jump down from the second floor?! –_

"Yo!" The door finally opened and Nagisa was greeted by a tall boy with bright red hair and hazel eyes. From the first look, the boy looked rather friendly as he was wearing a grin on his face. "Akabane Karma, nice to meet you."

"Hello, I'm Shiota Nagisa." Nagisa greeted as he held out a hand, "Nice to meet you."

"What did you do to get send here?" Karma took a step to the side and signed Nagisa to come in, "Threw your roommate out of the window? Accidentally set the dorm on fire?"

 _\- WHAT?! –_

Despite what he was thinking, Nagisa managed to keep a straight face and answered: "Ehh, no I just enrolled here today and there weren't any rooms left.", Nagisa answered with a chuckle.

"Huh…" for some reason Karma's enthusiasm instantly died down with Nagisa's answer, "Well, there are 4 bedrooms in this house, 2 on the base floor and 2 on the second floor, each room has its own bathroom, just go check them out yourself. The kitchen is over there," Karma pointed to the right side of the stairs, "you can use it whenever you want. The room right across the stairs on the second floor is mine, so just chose any other one you like." And with that Karma simple left Nagisa standing there and went back up the stairs, "Oh yeah! And if you hear some strange sounds coming from my room, just ignore them!"

"… Alright." Nagisa only came back to his senses after he heard the door to Karma's room close, that was a rather sudden change in attitude, "Chose any other room huh…" Nagisa repeated Karma's words and let out a sigh, well guess he'll have to check out the house first.

Nagisa made a quick tour around the house checking out the kitchen and all bathrooms. He then went ahead to look at the rooms that were available. The rooms were fairly spacy and already had beds, wardrobes and tables in there. To be fair Nagisa really didn't mind which room he would stay in, but that quickly changed after he noticed that each room had its own balcony.

When Nagisa entered the other room on the second floor, he went straight towards the balcony to take a look. And it was just as he expected! The villa he was in was at the edge of the academy, so Nagisa was able to see the capital from this balcony. On top of that, the wall surrounding the academy was only a few meters away!

 _\- This is the one. –_

Nagisa thought with a satisfied grin on his face. When he was doing his registration, he had been told that students weren't allowed to leave the academy without permission after bedtime and it had been bothering him ever since. But now with his balcony so close to the wall, he was fairly confident that he was capable of sneaking out without anyone noticing with the night as his cover.

"Guess I'll go check out what's going on tonight." Nagisa decided while mumbling to himself, "I will need some cash anyway.".

Having made his choice, Nagisa lazily walked towards his new bed and threw his small back onto it while he followed right after, "Haha… how long has it been?" Nagisa wondered, "Almost 4 years huh… I almost forgot how nice it is to sleep on a surface that isn't rock."

After laying there and doing nothing for a short while, Nagisa thought that it would be appropriate to let Karma know which room he had picked. So Nagisa got back on his feet and walked towards Karma's room.

"Hey, Akabane!" Nagisa knocked a few times while yelling.

"What? I'm kinda busy here!" Nagisa heard a slightly frustrated voice yelling back.

"Nothing, just thought I'd tell you that I picked the other room on the second floor!" Nagisa yelled back.

"Good for you! Sorry but now is a really bad time!" Karma continued to yell back but was interrupted by a sudden sound of an explosion, "Ah fuck!".

"What was that?!" Nagisa yanked Karma's door open and was greeted by a huge smokescreen that made him cough.

"What the heck! Close the door!" before Nagisa could make sense out of the situation, he was shoved out of the room with Karma following right after him and shutting the door, "Damn…".

"What did you do!?" Nagisa asked in terror, the smokescreen was extremely thick!

"Ah, nothing special, I was just trying to merge two spells together." Karma answered nonchalantly, "Didn't work out as I wanted is all."

"You were trying out spells in your room?!" Nagisa thought he misunderstood him.

"Yeah, what about it?" Karma turned around and grinned.

"Why not outside?" Nagisa questioned.

"Didn't feel like it."

"…"

"Hey, mind your own business alright?"

"…sure, but what were you trying to do?"

"I was trying to merge _Flame Bullet_ and _Smokescreen_." Karma explained, "I wanted to create a sort of smoke bullet that would explode when detonated."

"Huh… but what's the point of that?" Nagisa wondered. If you'll have the bullet explode anyway, why not just use the _Smokescreen_ spell.

"Hehe, imagine shooting that into someone's mouth and all the smoke suddenly expanding inside him." Karma snickered evilly as he was imagining it.

 _\- He has some bad habits… -_

Nagisa recalled what he was told when he got here. "I guess that would be fun to watch." Nagisa shrugged and admitted.

"You do?" Karma wondered out of surprise, "Huh… well, just to warn you, I'm experimenting quite a lot with spells so don't freak out every time something goes boom."

"… I guess I can do that, well have fun." Nagisa deadpanned as he left for his own room. "Yeah, no wonder he's been moved from 6 rooms, he's a prankster… and on top of that, a genius." Merging spells was not as easy as Karma made it sound like. It required the user to have a great understanding of his spells and perfect control! Not only that, to come up with the idea to shoot an exploding smokescreen down someone throat, in some way that guy was like a mad scientist!

Nagisa quickly made his way back to his room and threw himself onto his bed, "Hmm… maybe I will take a group mission today." Nagisa gave it a little thought, "They've been bothering me for a while now to find a partner…".

"Well, I guess that's that." Nagisa decided to just shrug it off and closed his eyes. The sun was already starting to set, and since he was planning to have a long night, he decided to get some sleep while he still could.

When Nagisa woke up again, the sun was already gone from the sky. But when he got up, he couldn't help but to frown slightly. "I'll need to get some spare clothes… and pajamas" Nagisa muttered when he saw all the wrinkles on his blazer and shirt, "We do get uniforms… so maybe just pajamas?".

While thinking about that, Nagisa grabbed his back that was still on his bed and headed towards the bathroom after locking the door of his room. When he came back out, Nagisa was dressed in a different attire.

He was still wearing black pants, but the material looked a lot tougher, a tight, black and high collared sweater topped with a dark gray hoodie. His knife was still tightly strapped to his waist and his hands were still covered by the same fingerless gloves Kagero had given him.

After checking again that his door was indeed locked a grey aura started to surround Nagisa. The glow of his scale from using _Illusion Shroud_ was perfectly covered by the glove that he was wearing. When the aura settled down again, Nagisa's hair and irises had once again turned into a grey color. His features also turned slightly sharper.

Taking a deep breath, Nagisa quietly opened the door to his balcony, grabbed a chair that was standing there and placed it between the door so that it wouldn't close completely. Nagisa then took another good look at his surroundings. There was a lantern far on his left side that slightly illuminated the place, but for the most part, everything was covered in shadows.

"Heh… that's better than I imagined." Nagisa smirked slightly before pulling the collar from his sweater up to cover his mouth and nose, the sweater also came with a mask. In a swift movement, Nagisa jumped over the fence of his balcony and jumped straight into the wall. But instead of crashing into it, Nagisa's body simply dove into it!

That was the second **Unique Skill** Nagisa's shadow scale had provided him, _Shadow Walk._ It gave Nagisa the ability to merge into shadows and move in them! But while he was in a shadow, he could only move at a walking speed and he wasn't able to jump into another shadow without fully revealing himself first. But that wasn't all, while the ability slowed him down greatly when he was in a shadow, it also boosted his speed by around 50% when he was simply moving on shadows!

Trailing the shadow spread across the wall of the academy, Nagisa slowly moved towards the other side until he was a fair distance away from it before he resurfaced out of a shadow.

With a cheeky grin, that wasn't visible due to his mask, on his face, Nagisa silently sprinted down the road and towards his destination.

* * *

While avoiding all the busier streets, Nagisa quickly made his way towards the less wealthy area of Valm. They say less wealthy, but it was still a fairly decent place. The streets were still clean, and the buildings looked sturdy. It was just a section for commoners and not any aristocrats.

Nagisa started to slow down after he reached an empty place rather dim lightning and only a few houses nearby. In the corner, there was an abandoned well standing. After making sure that no one was nearby, Nagisa jumped over the edge and straight into it!

Since the well was abandoned, there wasn't any water left in it, but it was still rather moist around. While you couldn't see from above, the bottom of the well was fairly vast. It looked more like a hallway than the bottom of a well. And at the end of the hallway, there was a sturdy looking door.

Nagisa slowly walked towards it and started to knock in a certain pattern. "Who goes there?" a voice came from behind the door while a small door opened and an eye started to peak out.

"The Liberator." Nagisa answered in a deeper voice than his usual one.

"Liberate us of what?"

"Of the dawn."

"What do you bring?"

"The dusk is what I shall bring."

"Come in." the voice said while the eye disappeared from the tiny door. Nagisa heard how several locks were opened before the door slowly opened itself, "Oh, it's you, it's been a while."

 **And that's the chapter! Nagisa has finally enrolled in the academy and is sharing a dorm with Karma! A lot of you will probably start telling me that the characters seem rather OOC by now, but let me explain. It is only natural that the characters will be OOC, unlike in "Last Assassination" or "4 years later", all the characters in this story have a completely different background story! And I already hinted that Nagisa will have a bit of a split personality.**

 **Nagisa was never abused by his mother so he won't have the same personality issues he had in the original story. That also makes it harder for Karma to warm up to Nagisa, in the original story, Karma warmed up to Nagisa because he seemed "harmless" and instantly distanced himself when he found out otherwise. In this story, Nagisa was never "harmless" to begin with, he doesn't have the same confidence issues (anymore after Kagero told him the truth behind his compatibility) as he had in the original story, so Karma won't be as careless around him in here.**

 **At the end of the chapter, Nagisa entered quite a suspicious place, didn't he? Tell me how you liked this chapter! Your reviews are my biggest motivation to write this story!**

 **And as always, thank you so much for your support and I'll see you in the next chapter! ;)**


	11. Chapter 10

"Yeah, I've been busy." Nagisa nodded while following the person inside. Just like Nagisa, this man was also wearing a mask, but not one that covered his mouth and nose, but one that covered his eyes. He wore a simple black full body suit and had a bunch of knives hanging around his waist. "How's it been, Crow?"

"Well, you came back on just the right day." The man Nagisa called Crow clicked his tongue and snickered.

"How so?" Nagisa wondered.

"The dusk has sent one of their princesses to our branch. They say it is just for training, but there is a rumor going around that she's being punished for something." Crow explained.

"That does seem more plausible, there's no other reason to send one of their elites to do our job." Nagisa nodded, "How's her record been?"

"5 out of 5 for now, but we are still trying to find her a partner. We've been specifically told that we're not to send her on A ranks or higher missions on her own." Crow explained, "But there's a problem, she's looking for a partner around her age and this person has to be able to defend himself for at least 5 minutes against her.".

"Doesn't sound too bad." Nagisa shrugged, "5 minutes sounds like a reasonable time even if she's an elite out of the elite."

"Yeah no, that's not the problem." Crow snickered again, "She's 12."

Nagisa instantly stopped walking hearing the news, "…I'm leaving." He said before turning around and walking back.

"Hey kid comon!" Crow quickly stopped him, "You're one of our best and the ONLY one around her age! You gotta help us out here!".

"I don't work with partners!" Nagisa was really irritated.

"Kid, you know you have to stop being such a difficult case… we've been keeping an eye shut due to your age, but we can't keep your status hidden for a lot longer! I agreed when you said you couldn't find a suitable partner, but after all this time you don't even have a codename!".

"No."

"Comon, give it a try, maybe you'll get along with her. For all I know, you could actually become part of the dusk if you really tried."

"No!" Nagisa insisted, there was no way he would partner up with someone! The only time he could go all out without any camouflage was on his missions. If he had a partner, he would have to hide the abilities from his shadow scale and constantly change the color and nature of his aura.

"God damn it, kid!" Crow sighed helplessly.

"How capable is she?" Nagisa asked after hesitating for a few seconds.

"Well, you said it yourself, she's an elite out of the elite, she can't be that bad."

"Hmm."

"So, will you consider?"

"No." Nagisa still shook his head stubbornly.

"Oh screw you, kid!"

Nagisa followed the man and entered a huge room that resembled a bar. There were a bunch of people sitting around and every single one of them were wearing masks, be it the sort Nagisa was wearing or crow was wearing. Some even had a mask that covered their entire face. And the most astonishing part, all of them were dragons!

Nagisa's attention was quickly caught by a silhouette sitting all alone in a corner, the main reason was that she was the only person around that was about Nagisa's height, the second reason was that she was wearing a dark purple combat suit.

"Really… purple? That's way too flashy for our work." Nagisa grunted in annoyance a little bit too loudly.

"Don't be like that, it's a really dark shade of purple so it basically looks like black in the dark." The man snickered again while patting Nagisa on his shoulder. "She's new to these kinds of missions after all."

Once Nagisa made his presence known, most of the people in the room looked up and greeted him. Despite the work that they do, the members of the branch were really tightknit and with Nagisa being the only literal child around till now, a lot of people in the branch saw him like some sort of kid brother. Of course, Nagisa's 100% success rate on missions also earned him quite a name.

"I was told that there was another member here who was around my age, I just didn't expect him to be so disrespectful and arrogant." The girl who was sitting there suddenly turned around and glared at Nagisa. She was wearing a mask similar to Nagisa's.

 _\- Her eyes… they seem… familiar. -_

Nagisa spaced out for a second before quickly recovering, "I was merely stating a fact. Purple really isn't a good choice of color if you want to stay hidden. You'll have to know that we don't always stay in the dark. Unnecessary attention might put not only you but also your teammates into danger." Nagisa rolled his eyes.

The girl, who was apparently the princess from the dusk, had large amber eyes and long back wavy hair tied into a ponytail. She had a rather slim and petite figure but her thin waist made her body look curvier than it actually was.

"Fair enough, I will look for a new attire." The girl was taken aback for a second, gave Nagisa's words a bit of thought, before nodding and glaring at Nagisa, "But even so, there was no need for such an attitude, was there?"

"The dusk has forced us to find a partner for you, and you selfishly added some extra requirements which made me the only remaining option." Nagisa grunted, "So in a way you are trying to get me killed along with you, what attitude do you expect?".

"You..." The girl audibly gritted her teeth while continuing to glare at Nagisa. Nagisa shuddered a bit when he noticed how her eyes were getting a little bit watery.

"Damn it, kid! Don't be a cunt!", "Kiddo! Don't just turn down a lady before even getting to know her, you'll be lonely forever!", Nagisa could hear people in the background yelling and couldn't help but to roll his eyes again.

"But I guess you are better than I expected. I really didn't think you were going to agree with changing your attire so easily." Nagisa sighed and admitted.

"You had a point so why wouldn't I?" The princess asked begrudgingly, "How did you expect me to react?!"

"Like a princess sitting on her high horse." Nagisa answered, "But still, I have no intention of forming a team with you." Nagisa declared straight ahead.

"Kid! Don't be such a pain in the ass!" Crow yelled as he frowned, "What is wrong with you?! Why are you behaving like that?!"

"I'm trying to leave a bad impression so she won't want to be my partner." Nagisa admitted shamelessly, "If she's the one who rejects the idea you can't blame me." Nagisa grunted.

"… Do you really hate me that much?" The princess frowned in confusion, "I don't think I've ever met you before.".

"No, you haven't, it's nothing personal. I simply don't work with partners and I plan to keep it that way." Nagisa stated, turned around and walked towards the mission board without even looking back.

"What's wrong with him…" The princess squinted her eyes as she continued to stare at Nagisa, but the anger in her eyes has faded and was replaced with a bit of curiosity.

* * *

Nagisa was scanning the mission board while letting out a silent sigh. He did feel a little bit guilty for acting the way he did, as a first impression, the dusk princess seemed like a sweet and polite girl. After everything Nagisa had said, she was still reasonably calm and didn't take any drastic measures. If they didn't meet under such conditions, Nagisa would gladly get to know her better.

That's when a mission hidden behind all the others caught Nagisa's attention! It was an A-rank assassination mission and had a hefty bounty of 10 gold! But the target was a Baronet living in Valm which would mean heavy security.

Without even thinking twice, Nagisa reached out to take it. But just as his hand was about to reach the piece of paper, a small hand with slender fingers reached for it as well.

Both hands stopped when they almost touched, Nagisa was startled for a second before he turned around to see the owner of the hand. "Can I have this mission?" Nagisa heard a voice ask.

"I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to take A-rank missions." Nagisa shook his head and raised an eyebrow. Next to him was no one else but the dusk princess he had just met before.

"… I need this mission." Nagisa could tell that she was gritting her teeth again.

"So do I." Nagisa simply shook his head again.

"Why?" she still wasn't giving up and asked. Nagisa sighed and simply moved his finger and pointed at the bounty.

"You're doing this for money?!" The princess shouted in disbelieve, "You're killing people for money?!"

"Alright listen here, princess!" Nagisa also snapped hearing her remark, "I don't know what kind of life you've been living till now and I don't care! You don't know a thing about me so stop judging me! I have things I have to do!"

"And you're willing to take other lives for it?!" there was a certain amount of disappointment in her large amber eyes. For some reason it made Nagisa shudder and feel really uncomfortable.

"I don't think I need to justify my actions to you, princess." Nagisa just grunted, "Then tell me, why do you need this mission?"

"That man deserves to die! For everything he's done!" There was a sudden burst of hatred coming from her amber eyes. It took Nagisa by surprise, he wasn't sure what to think of that answer. She knew what the baronet was doing.

"Do you know how these missions get on this board?" Nagisa asked her after calming himself down a little.

"Why are you changing the topic?" the princess asked coldly.

"People living in Valm send us these requests. We have places all over this city where they can leave their request, most of them are just moving stores and shops opened by people of our branch and if the missions are acceptable, they bring them back here." Nagisa continued completely ignoring the princess remark.

"But to have your mission accepted you have to pay 50% of the bounty which in this case would be 5 gold, the other 50% is paid by the dusk." Nagisa finished leaving the princess confused.

"And why are you telling me this?" she asked still having a disgusted and cold voice coming from behind her mask.

"This is my request." Nagisa said in a monotone, "5 gold was everything I've saved up in years, and I spend it all on this request. I need this mission."

"You request and complete your own missions to make money?! You're terrible!" She glared at Nagisa disgusted, "I've never met a scum like you!"

The look in her eyes bothered Nagisa and he couldn't figure out why. She definitely hated him now and this was his goal from the start, but whenever he saw her look at him in disappointment and disgust, he felt awful.

"Glad you think so poorly of me. Do you really think I would make this an assassination on a baronet if I just wanted money?!" Nagisa rolled his eyes, "If I wanted to maximize my profit I would just make myself steal stuff from a baronet, that's way safer and gives a lot more profit."

The princess was startled by that, Nagisa was right. After all, the one giving the request also gets to keep the stolen goods. "Then why?", she didn't understand.

"That baronet is involved in the slave market, not just our kind, but even humans!" Nagisa gritted his teeth and said, "He has to die."

"… You… I'm sorry, I thought you…" there were clear shock and panic showing in the princess's eyes, "I'm sorry." Was all she could say, "But then why would you say you were doing this for money?"

"I still am… I spend almost everything I had to request this mission, if I don't get it back I'll starve to death." Nagisa grunted uncomfortably, "I don't know if it's something you can relate to."

"I know how it feels to almost starve to death, I'm sorry for judging you without knowing what situation you're in." She apologized sincerely, "But now that I know, even though you already declined once, I want to ask you to be my partner. I feel like we have more in common than I initially thought."

"… I just ruined all the work I did to build a bad reputation, huh?" Nagisa grunted begrudgingly, "Why did I feel the need to justify myself…" he mumbled to himself.

"That's a great idea!" Nagisa grunted even louder when he suddenly heard Crow's voice, "You can see it as a test run, if things work out you can form a team after you're back, if not, well that's just how it is then."

"That's a terrible idea…" Nagisa mumbled again.

"Well, either you two are doing this mission together or I'm taking this mission." Crow snickered while snatching the contract out of Nagisa's and the princess's hands, "You know, I just decided that I have priority since I am in a leading position in this branch."

"You're abusing your authority!" Nagisa complained.

"Hell yeah I am! So, what's the answer kid?" Crow asked while holding the contract high enough, so it was out of Nagisa's reach.

"Just this once…" Nagisa finally gave in after hesitating for a few seconds, "Pleasure to work with you princess."

"Call me Akari, the pleasure is mine, ehh." Akari nodded but stopped as she realized that she had no idea how to call Nagisa.

"Akari? Is that your real name or your codename?" Nagisa wondered. It was unusual to have an actual name as your codename, most of the members use animals or objects as their codename like Crow, Blade or one member even called herself Baby.

"Honestly? I don't even know myself anymore." Akari answered quietly in a self-mocking way.

"Huh…? Oh yeah, I don't have a codename, most people just call me kid or kiddo around here, but I guess that wouldn't work for you." Nagisa just shrugged to change the topic. "Just call me whatever."

"Hmm, are you sure?" Akari raised an eyebrow and Nagisa could see a hint of mischief in her amber eyes.

"Ehh, sure why not." Nagisa frowned slightly and answered.

"Alright, then I'm just gonna call you Jerk." Akari decided happily.

"… Come again?" Nagisa deadpanned.

"You said to call you whatever, and my first expression of you was exactly that." Akari chimed as she took the contract back from Crow.

"Huh… I guess that's only fair."

"Mhmm, and we should get going if we want to get back before dawn." Akari said before starting to walk towards the exit.

"You owe me one kid." Crow grinned as he watched Akari disappear from their sight.

"I owe you nothing! If anything, the entire branch owes me for the sacrifice." Nagisa grunted helplessly.

"Aww comon kid, she seems like a nice girl." Crow just snickered and said, "It's odd though, she's always been extremely isolated the days before."

"Huh? She looks fairly sociable to me?" Nagisa doubted.

"Yeah that's what I'm saying, we've never seen her like this. I'm pretty sure this is the first time she said more than 3 sentences." Crow claimed.

"Huh…"

"And she's surprisingly friendly towards you even with everything you've pulled."

"You call that friendly? She called me a scum before and calls me Jerk now."

"You deserved that kid."

"I know! But still…"

"And you're being awfully nice even though you said you're trying to piss her off."

"I know…"

"I think I'm seeing something." Crow started snickering again while looking at Nagisa with a suggestive look.

"Hmm? What do you see?" Nagisa just frowned and wondered.

"… Really?" Crow deadpanned, "You know what, never mind. Just hurry up, don't make her wait too long."

"No seriously, what do you see?" Nagisa insisted but Crow already disappeared into the crowd before Nagisa could get an answer. "What was that all about…?"

Deciding to shrug it all off, Nagisa quickly followed Akari out of the underground bunker and back to the bottom of the well, "Do you have an idea how we should proceed?" Nagisa asked as he saw Akari.

"Hmm? We just have to kill him, right?" Akari asked innocently, the contradiction made Nagisa grimace.

"You've never assassinated someone, have you?" Nagisa sighed and asked.

"Is there a difference?" Akari wondered.

"Assassinating means that we have to kill him without revealing who killed him, best case we make it seem like an accident, for example, he fell down the stairs, or he just died naturally in his sleep and so on." Nagisa explained.

"That seems really unnecessary." Akari frowned.

"It's not! If they find out that we killed a baronet, the entire branch is in danger. The only reason we still exist is because we hide ourselves well. Why do you think we have another 7 spare hideouts in this city?" Nagisa explained patiently. "And we have to take your attire into consideration, it would be optimal if we can finish him off without alerting anyone, because once they have any source of light on, you'll be like the sun in a clear sky."

"I'm sorry…" Akari sighed and apologized after hearing Nagisa's explanation, not just because of the choice of her outfit, but also because she didn't consider the safety of everyone else in the branch.

"Don't worry about it, I was being unnecessarily harsh on you before. As long as you find something more suitable the next time it's all fine, it comes all with experience." Nagisa comforted her.

"Let's get out of here first, then we can figure out a plan on how to do this job." Nagisa suggested as he started to hop out of the well from side to side with ease. This will be his first time doing a mission with another person. Unfortunately for him, Akari seems like an amateur when it comes to assassinations.

 **That's the new chapter :D It should be pretty obvious who Akari is right? And it's just fine like that! I know there are probably a lot of questions about Akari/Kaede right now, they will be answered as the story progresses (Like why she said she didn't know if her name was a codename or not, what she's been through in the 3 years and so on.)**

 **Please tell me what you think about this chapter in the reviews!**

 **And as always, thank you so much for your support and I'll see you in the next chapter ;)!**


	12. Chapter 11

In the middle of the night, two shadows were rushing through the empty and poorly illuminated streets of the civilian area of Valm and heading towards the noble area.

"You're surprisingly fast." Akari noted while following Nagisa with ease.

"I could say the same about you." Nagisa answered, he was using the speed boost part of his _Shadow Walk_ to its full extent, but Akari seemed to have no problem to keep up with him, in fact, it looked like she was doing it with ease. "Alright, since we will be working together for this mission, I think a proper introduction is needed."

"Hmm? Sure, like I said you can call me Akari and I'm…" Akari started to talk with a slight hint of confusion.

"Ehh no, that's not what I meant." Nagisa quickly stopped her, "When I said introduction I was thinking of introducing our combat styles, of course, you don't need to tell me your **Unique Skills** , but knowing if you are a mage or a combatant and how you fight will be useful."

"Oh, I see." Akari nodded, "Well… my case is a little special. Technically, I'm a wind mage. But due to my **Unique Skills** , I'm more of a close combat fighter. Of course, I can still use some basic spells"

"So a mage who fights like a combatant?" Nagisa asked a little bit unsure, "How does that work?"

"I guess I'll show you." Akari said after thinking for a bit and placed her left hand on the back of her right hand where her scale would be if not for the gloves she was wearing. After a dim green glow, two short daggers appeared in her left hand.

"How did you do that?!" Nagisa asked in awe, it would be extremely convenient if he could do that as well.

"Are you a mage or a combatant?" Akari asked calmly.

"A combatant, why?" Nagisa asked.

"Then you'll still need a while, our scales have a natural storage space in them, basically another tiny dimension. For mages, it unlocks around stage 3, but for combatants, it's usually around stage 5. I've been told it unlocks depending on how strong your mind is." Akari explained. "It's a unique kind of magic."

"Huh, I see. How do I know if it's unlocked or not?" Nagisa asked.

"You'll feel it when it does, it's a strange feeling of having a room connected to your scale, kind of hard to explain." Akari answered.

"Hmm… thanks." Nagisa nodded after trying to sense a connection to his scales, but there was nothing yet, "So is this sort of magic to our kind only?"

"No, it is kind of weird, really. While space and time magic can't be mastered by any living being, it is naturally existent in some rare magic crystals and of course, our scales. In order for humans to have a storage like us, they have to get their hands on a crystal first… or... a scale." Akari's face quickly darkened while saying that.

"Wait, what?!" Nagisa's eyes widened in horror, "But that would…"

"Kill us, yes." Akari finished Nagisa's sentence, "But they don't really care. To them we are just like any other animal, animals they can skin for fancy clothing or accessories. To them, our scale is everything we are. Slave markets will try to sell us alive to maximize their profit, but if any of us tries to resist, they won't hesitate for a second to kill us and remove everything they see as valuable from our body, let it be our veins, eyes or whatever they find interest in."

Nagisa was taken aback by Akari's tone. He could hear the deep hatred and resentment in her voice, her usually warm and soft amber eyes were so cold that Nagisa could feel a shiver running down his spine, "What happened to you?", Nagisa muttered quietly.

"Huh?" Akari suddenly raised her head and looked at Nagisa in shock, "I'm sorry I was spacing out a little, please just forget what I said." Akari quickly shook her head and avoided looking Nagisa in his eyes.

"Right, weren't you going to show me your combat style?" Nagisa reminded her to change the subject.

"R-right, here, watch." Akari quickly calmed herself again and took a deep breath. " _Air Blade_." Akari silently muttered her spell and two long wind blades appeared in front of her. She then closed her eyes and started to concentrate on something else which Nagisa assumed to be her **Unique Skill**. When she opened them again, the wind blades started to take the same shape as her two daggers in her hands. With a swift movement Akari stabbed both her daggers into the wind blades and to Nagisa's surprise, the wind blades seemed to be stuck on the blades of the actual daggers.

"That's quite amazing." Nagisa noted while raising his eyebrows, "I believe it takes quite a bit of control to match your spell with your own movements.".

"That's true." Akari said in a soft tone after dissolving her wind blades, "My daggers are made from a metal that attracts mana which makes it a lot easier, but even then, I can only keep this up for about 15 minutes before I would pass out due to mental exhaustion.".

"Are you sure that this is something you should tell me?" Nagisa raised his eyebrows and asked, "You know I might just exploit that weakness if we get into a fight."

"Or you might help me since you know that I'll run out of stamina." Akari giggled quietly to Nagisa's reaction, "You know that I'm perfectly capable of using daggers without applying any magic to then?".

"Oh… right." Nagisa felt like hitting himself, just because she showed him how she could apply magic to her blades, Nagisa subconsciously assumed that it was the only way she could use her daggers, but that would be ridiculous.

"You combatants use your aura to enhance your basic strength, defense and some even their attack range. In my case, I use magic to enhance my speed, weapons and attack range. My advantage is that I can combine the usual mage combat style with my own making me unpredictable, for example, the wind blades I just showed you. I could suddenly fire my wind blade from my daggers like a normal mage midbattle and catch someone off guard."

"Which gives you a lot more choices in battle, but at the same time it makes you a glass cannon." Nagisa frowned at Akari's explanation, "Unlike me, your mana doesn't enhance your defenses at all. While it looks like you have everything a combatant has and even more, all it takes it one hit to take you out. When you go all out, your attacks may be stronger than mine, but you lack the endurance to make this an efficient way of fighting."

"Pretty much, yes." Akari shrugged nonchalantly while putting her daggers back into her scale, "But I can somewhat cover my weaknesses with good equipment.".

"VERY good equipment." Nagisa rolled his eyes, "That's a ridiculously dangerous way of fighting! I can't believe the dusk is fine with one of their princesses adapting such a fighting style."

"Which is why they're not." Akari chuckled a bit sadly, "You're awfully perceptive you know that?"

"Thanks? I guess?" Nagisa just shrugged, "But it also brings me to my next question, based on how well you could control your _Air Blade_ before, you definitely would make a splendid mage, why would you insist on close combat?".

"You're awfully well informed about mages as a combatant…" Akari frowned a bit suspiciously.

"I started off as a mage." Nagisa explained with a half lie. "And I had a good teacher." Nagisa added a bit sadly.

"Had a teacher?..." Akari silently muttered to herself before talking to Nagisa again, "I guess people do say I'm an exceptional mage for my age, but that just doesn't do it for me. It doesn't feel right to sit in the backline and cast spells while others are risking their lives in the frontline protecting you." Akari answered.

"I see…" Nagisa nodded, "But have you ever thought about it in a different way, us combatants can go all out on the frontlines because we know that you mages have our back." Nagisa asked.

"Sure did… but there's only this much protection a simple mage can give." Akari simply shook her head in denial.

"Well, it's your choice." Nagisa shrugged and suddenly stopped, "Alright, now that I know a bit more about you we can start strategizing." Nagisa took cover in a dark alley.

"Mhmm."

"So, our target is a baronet, we know where the mansion he's living in is, but we have no intel on the inner structure of that building." Nagisa started, "So the first thing we have to do is to infiltrate the building without getting noticed.".

"How do we do that?" Akari frowned slightly.

"Leave that to me, I'll do that on my own first and when I have things figured out I'll come and get you." Nagisa answered.

"No way! I'm coming with you!" Akari's frown got deeper as she protested.

"Your outfit Akari… You're going be like a shining star when we're indoors and the room is illuminated." Nagisa sighed and reminded her, "And on top of that, I'll need you to secure my escape route, in case I mess up." Nagisa told her.

"…Jerk." Akari pouted slightly.

"…" Nagisa deadpanned at Akari's reaction.

"Fine, so I'll be on guard duty and then?" Akari sighed and asked.

"Once I have the structure figured out, we'll try to enter the room he's in, preferably, without him noticing. If we're lucky, he'll be asleep." Nagisa explained. "If he's asleep, I will use one of my **Unique Skills** to instantly freeze his bloodstream and make his system stop running for a while. It will look like a natural death when they find him."

"What if he's awake or if he wakes up?" Akari asked.

"Then we'll take one hit, and if it fails, we run." Nagisa answered.

"We run?" Akari frowned slightly disturbed, "What about the baronet then?"

"Nothing, if we can't kill him instantly, we've failed the mission. Remember Akari, ONE try. If we fail, we run instantly. They won't need more than a few seconds to corner us if we stay in one place. If you stay, I WILL leave you behind." Nagisa warned her in a serious tone again.

"Fine…" Akari agreed begrudgingly while following him silently for the rest of the way.

* * *

"We're there." Nagisa suddenly came to a stop and hissed silently, "Just stay on guard here while I'm in there, what animal noises can you mimic? Doesn't have to be very accurate." Nagisa asked.

"H-huh? I guess I can make try a cat?" Akari answered a bit flustered and confused.

"…That won't do, I won't be able to hear you meowing while I'm in there, it's too quiet… something louder like a wolf's howl for example?" Nagisa shook his head and asked. "No, never mind that wouldn't work either… there are no wolves in the city."

"… You want a signal, for what?" Akari frowned and asked.

"In case our target isn't home." Nagisa explained, "We know that this is his mansion, but there's no telling if he's even in there right now. It would be really bad if he suddenly comes back while I'm sniffing around in his mansion."

"I see… so you will need a signal when I see him coming back?" Akari asked just to confirm.

"Correct, but we need a signal that's not too obvious but still loud enough for me to hear." Nagisa came back to the first question.

"Will a windstorm do?" Akari asked after thinking for a while.

"No, creating a windstorm big enough for me to hear inside will cost you too much mana." Nagisa shook his head.

"I can try to bark…" Akari suggested a little bit unwillingly.

"Won't do either… they have watchdogs patrolling around the mansions, hearing a dog's bark will only alert them." Nagisa shook his head in denial again.

"Fine… take this." Akari sighed and held one of her daggers to Nagisa.

"Huh? Ehh, I have my own weapon, see?" Nagisa turned a little bit to show her the pitch-black dagger fastened behind his waist.

"It's not that! My daggers are linked to each other, the blacksmith who crafted them is an earth mage and he added polarities to my daggers. Inside a certain range, the daggers will attract each other when I insert my mana into one of them." Akari explained while Nagisa finally understood what she was planning.

"When I see the baronet, I will do exactly that, when you feel something pulling at my dagger you have to get out of there. But don't you dare lose it!" Akari warned.

"I won't…" Nagisa nodded and took the dagger still a bit confused, "No offense… but you're too trusting for your own good for this kind of work."

"Psst!" Akari suddenly hushed him and pulled him down a little, "Look!" She said while pointing at the entrance of the mansion.

"Huh?... Wait, is that the baronet?" Nagisa's eyes widened in confusion, "Why is he leaving his house at this hour?"

"Who's that girl beside him?" Akari wondered with a slight frown.

"I think that's his sister… well, it doesn't matter, this will only make our job easier." Nagisa smirked a little while holding Akari's dagger back to her, "Thanks for the offer."

"Really convincing after you made fun of me being too trusting." Akari rolled her eyes while taking her dagger back.

"I wasn't making fun of you, I'm serious, you've only met me a little bit more than an hour ago, but I already know quite a lot about your skills and abilities. You're putting yourself in a dangerous position if you keep sharing information about yourself with everyone." Nagisa shook his head and answered seriously.

"I know…" Akari sighed and answered begrudgingly, _\- Why am I telling him so much?! Is it because he's my age? -_

Akari was a little bit frustrated, back at the dusk she was known for being quiet, and like Crow has told Nagisa, she's barely spoken while being in the branch either.

"I'm not suggesting you to be paranoid all the time, but you'll have to hold back a little bit. You never know when your ally might turn into an enemy." Nagisa just shrugged it off and continued, "Well, we better hurry or we'll lose them." Nagisa suddenly changed the topic and gave her a light nudge before jumping over to the next roof.

"Jerk…" Akari muttered silently before following Nagisa.

 **A rather short chapter again, I'm getting into exam phase of the semester now, so I can't really find the time to write a lot. I will still try to get some updates out every now and then, but I can't guarantee it. The exam phase will last for about 2 more months, so I'll apologize in advance for the lack of updates.**

 **So yeah, this chapter is more about getting known to Akari (Not Kaede) and her fighting style. And also letting Nagisa and Akari get a bit closer to each other.**

 **Not a lot happened in this chapter, but I hope you still enjoyed it!**

 **And as always, thank you so much for your support, please review and I'll see you in the next chapter! ;)**


	13. Chapter 12

After tailing the baronet and his sister from above for a while, Nagisa and Akari decided to get a bit closer. The siblings were starting to walk into small alleyways and making a lot of unnecessary turns as if they were afraid of being followed.

"Hey… when we make our move later, try not to kill but restrict him." Nagisa suddenly whispered while they were quietly sneaking after the two of them.

"Why would you want to keep him alive?!" Akari frowned and asked a little bit disturbed.

"I don't, but now that he's outside, we have the chance to get more information out of him. There might be more nobles involved in the slavery business. We didn't have the luxury to ask him questions if he stayed in his mansions surrounded by guards, but now we have enough time." Nagisa explained calmly.

"I see…", Akari answered after thinking about it for a while, "I'll try my best."

"If it's too hard for you to hold back on him, why don't you suppress his sister?" Nagisa suggested, "Don't worry, I won't let him get away."

"… I guess, but don't you dare let him escape." Akari agreed after letting out a sigh.

 _\- something is seriously wrong with her hatred for slavers. -_

"Relax, our mission has become quite a bit easier now that he has left his fortress on his own accord." Nagisa reassured her.

Akari nodded and said, "He's been walking into rather small and less used alleys for a while now, it feels like he's going to meet up with somebody."

"… You're right. Get back on a roof, I'll try to get even closer and listen to what they say." Nagisa told her, "I have a **Unique Skill** that helps me to hide, I won't be able to get as close if you're with me." He explained.

"Alright." Akari nodded and quickly took a turn and disappeared form Nagisa's sight.

 _\- I have to admit that she's skilled… very inexperienced but skilled. -_

After making sure that he was out of Akari's sight, Nagisa quickly dove into a shadow. He was really thankful that the baronet was taking these small alleys since they also provided him with huge shadows.

Nagisa didn't have any problems following them since they were walking in a fairly slow pace to begin with, so even with the speed reduction from being in a shadow, he could still keep up easily.

When he looked around and found Akari in the blind spot of the siblings, he almost had to laugh. The look in her eyes made it obvious that she was slightly frustrated that she couldn't find any trail of him.

He could tell from the beginning that Akari was pretty competitive. The fact that he kept giving her orders and pointing out some of her mistakes up until now made her wanted to prove herself.

Before Nagisa could decide if he should let her discover him on purpose by leaving the shadow for a second, the baronet siblings had come to a stop. It was only now that Nagisa noticed that they were getting close to the city wall after all the turns they've taken.

"Alright Celica, that's the furthest I can take you." Nagisa quickly closed in on the siblings and heard the baronet say to his sister.

"Can't you come with me?" the sister called Celica asked her brother with a worried expression on her face.

"I would love to... but with the sudden destruction of the slave camp in the mountains things got a little bit complicated." The baronet shook his head and answered gently.

 _\- Last deal? Wait, is he trying to escape the capital? Destroyed slave camp in the mountains… no way… -_

"Just be careful Lucas…" Celica struggled for a while then gave up and sighed.

"This is the last deal… with this, we'll be able to live our lives without having to take these damned orders from the royal family… we'll disappear from this world and live in some small village far away." Lucas sighed and promised.

 _\- …Shit, this is getting really complicated… -_

"Your ride will be here in a second, I'll come to find you once this is all over." Lucas said while moving closer to the city wall and crouching down.

 _\- Wait… is that? -_

After removing a few loose bricks, a tiny tunnel appeared in front of the baronet! There was a tunnel under the city wall!

 _\- Crap… we'll have to strike before they get out of the city! -_

Nagisa instantly realized after recovering from the initial shock of the tunnel in the city wall. He quickly moved to a spot where he was no detectable by either Akari or the siblings and submerged out of the shadow, took a deep breath and then showed himself to Akari, signaling her to attack.

* * *

Akari was carefully observing the siblings. While she could see that the baronet was crouching there and busy with something, she couldn't see the tunnel from her angle. At the same time, she was also trying to spot "Jerk" as he suddenly out of nowhere stepped out of a corner she had been eyeing for a while now!

 _\- He's been in that corner the entire time?! That's impossible! There is no way I could've missed him getting in there from up here! -_

Akari's eyes widened as she pouted a little under her mask but quickly concentrating again after seeing "Jerk's" signal to strike. Without hesitating for a second, Akari dove down from the roof with both her daggers in her hands.

From the corner of her vision, she could also see how "Jerk" basically flashed through the shadows towards the crouching baronet!

 _\- Don't kill her… don't kill her… -_

She kept reminding herself as she rammed her knee into the back of Celica while dropping the dagger in her left hand and grabbing the left wrist of the baronet's sister. With a swift movement, Akari pushed Celica to the ground keeping her knee on the baronet's sisters back, pressed the arm that she had grabbed onto Celica's back and placed her right dagger next to Celica's throat.

The second she was done with her target, Akari lifted her head to see how "Jerk" was doing. To her surprise, he was simply standing behind the still crouching baronet with his right hand placed on Lucas' shoulder. Honestly, it looked absolutely ridiculous, a 1,50m tall child was suppressing a fully-grown man with a single hand. But for some reason, the baronet's face was starting to turn pale and slightly purple as he started shivering.

"Good evening, my lord." Akari heard how "Jerk" greeted him, "You were talking about something quite interesting there, care to share?"

"W-what are you t-talking a-about?" The baronet's voice sounded as if he was freezing as he helplessly stuttered.

"Spare me the act, I've heard every single word you said. What's the last deal about, hmm?" "Jerk" asked as he tightened the grip on the baronet's shoulder.

"I-I don't know w-what you're t-talking about." The baronet gritted his teeth and stubbornly refused to talk. Akari could feel how her anger was starting to boil up inside her.

"Akari if he doesn't answer the next question, break the girl's arm.", "Jerk" sighed and told her, "Make sure she can't scream though, we don't need unnecessary attention."

 _\- H-huh? -_

Akari blanked out of a second… while she didn't mind killing people like the baronet, she felt a little bit uncomfortable with the idea of torturing his sister to make him talk. "G-got it.", but she still nodded a bit hesitantly.

"The slave camp in the mountains that has been destroyed, which mountain are you talking about, were you in charge of that slave camp?" Akari heart stopped for a second as she heard the question, he right arm was starting to shake slightly as he tightened the grip on Celica's wrist.

"… T-the heaven hills, a-and yes… I-I was in change o-of that camp." The baronet finally gave up and answered with a sigh after struggling for so long, "P-please don't hurt my s-sister, s-she's i-innocent."

Akari's mind went completely blank as fragments of her memory started to play in her brain, "Heaven hills… you were in charge of the camp on heaven hills?!" Akari could hear how her voice was shaking. "I'm going kill you… I-I…"

"AKARI!" she was pulled back into reality when "Jerk" suddenly hissed her name, "Calm down, or you're going to kill her."

"Huh?" Akari quickly took a glace at the girl in front of her. The dagger that she was holding in front of the girl's neck was already touching the skin of the girl and has already left a shallow cut there, her grip on the girl's wrist was so tight that the girl was already shivering in pain was sweat drops were falling from her forehead. "Sorry… I'm fine now." her eyes widened as she gave "Jerk" a quick nod after taking a deep breath.

"Jerk" kept looking at her for another few seconds before he returned her nod and turned back to face the baronet, "You also said something about the royal family, what's that about?"

"T-the entire slave m-market belongs to the royal family." The baronet started, his stuttering became a lot better after "Jerk" had softened the grip on his shoulder, "A few years ago, minor nobles like me were asked if we had any interest in it, they had p-promised me the Viscount title if I worked for their goal."

 _\- The royal family?! -_

Both her and "Jerk's" eyes widened as the baronet kept talking, "The s-slave market is nothing but a cover for their true g-goal… they have employed r-royal guards into the slave business with the g-goal to capture y-young dragons. It is a w-well-known fact that the dragon tribes were g-growing weak due to the lack of children. The royal family w-wants to speed up this process and take control of the younger generations of the tribes at the same time

"You've got to be kidding me…" Akari heard how "Jerk" silently muttered to himself in disbelieve. But she had to admit that she felt the exact same… never had she thought that a simple assassination mission would end up revealing something this grand? "Why are you trying to run then?", "Jerk" asked.

"The camp that was under my charge made a huge mistake a few years ago, they lost 2 young dragon hatchlings." By now the stuttering of the baronet had already stopped, even though his face was still slightly purple, and he was still shivering. "Apparently, the royal family had already been using them for some kind of negotiation, so by losing them I basically messed up their plans big times. Ever since then we've been getting in all sorts of trouble, we get punished for something that we have nothing to do with…"

"I see… so you want to do one last job, take the money and disappear.", Akari ended the sentence for the baronet, "Heh… that's so pathetic, you decided to join the slave market and screw over other people's lives just for a title and wealth. After getting in all this trouble you're still going to sacrifice hundreds of lives to ensure your own future..."

"… You're right." The baronet was startled by Akari's speech for a second but then let out a self-mocking laugh.

"Should I? Or do you want to do it?", "Jerk's" question surprised Akari a little. She didn't expect him to ask at all considering how he was giving all the commands before.

"I'll do it…" Akari gave him a thankful nod before removing her dagger from Celica's throat.

"No! Please! Spare my brother! He was only following the orders from the royal family! Please don't kill him, I'll do anything, please!" It took the girl a while to understand what was going on, but when she did, tears instantly started to burst out of her eyes as she started pleading.

"You want me to spare your brother? Heh… and who was there to spare my brother… I would give anything to have him back…" Akari's heart suddenly felt really heavy as she let out a sad and self-mocking laugh while gritting her teeth. She didn't even have the chance to plead for her brother's life…

With a swift hit with the hilt of the dagger, Akari knocked Celica out and slowly walked towards the baronet and "Jerk". "It was your own choice…", were Akari's last words as her arm with the dagger flashed past the baronet's throat.

"Come on, let's leave.", "Jerk" let out a sigh as he let go of the baronet's shoulder leaving him standing there completely confused.

Akari only gave him a short nod and quickly followed him onto a roof to head back to their hideout.

10 seconds had passed after both of them had left. After being sure that the two assassins were gone, the baronet hurried to his sister only to suddenly feel a sharp pain in his throat. Before he could understand what was happening, blood started to burst out of his wound as his body started to drop lifelessly right onto his sister's body.

With a loud thud, the corpse of the baronet fell right onto the body of his sister and bounced off in a strange manner. Her body was hard like stone and completely frozen from the inside, there wasn't a single drop of liquid blood left in her body.

* * *

"Are you alright?" Nagisa finally asked Akari after they've been jumping from roof to roof for about 10 minutes.

"More or less.", was her answer, but the sad and tired look in her eyes was telling Nagisa something else.

"Why did you kill him like that?", Nagisa hesitated a bit but decided to ask. Akari had left an extremely thin ring of wind around the baronet's throat with her swing and had tightened it 10 seconds after they had left. Forming such a thin wind blade in a ring shape, maintaining it, keeping it around the baronet's throat and then activating it from quite a distance is extremely taxing on one's mind, even if she's a high-level stage 3 mage.

"I don't want to see or have his blood on me… it disgusts me.", Akari answered after giving him a strange look, "Why did you kill the girl?"

"You've noticed…" Nagisa let out a sigh, "I told you that we can't afford to reveal ourselves or the entire branch is in danger, the girl would've been a living proof." Nagisa hesitated for a second and answered.

"I'm not judging you… even though the baronet was the one doing it, his sister clearly knew what he was doing, and even then, she didn't try to stop him from doing one last job. She didn't do anything herself, but she subconsciously approved that it's fine to ruin other people's lives to ensure her own future."

"I see… hey, want to take a break?" Nagisa sighed when Akari's body started shaking from anger again. "Just sit down for a while."

With a small nod, Akari followed him on a spacious and rather flat roof. Following his lead, Akari took a seat next to him.

The two silently sat there for a couple of minutes looking at the city without anyone saying a single word. "I'm sorry… for your brother.", Nagisa suddenly said.

Instead of answering, Akari just slowly shook her head, "I'll have to report what we've found out to the _Dusk_.", she forcefully changed the topic unwilling to speak about it.

"Yeah… I still can't believe we've stumbled across something this crazy…" Nagisa covered half of his face with his palm, "That's an insane scheme the royal family is having."

"What bother's me is that people might not believe us… I think you already know, but the _Dusk_ does not have a good reputation among humans." Akari snickered forcefully and said.

"Well, I'd be surprised if it were anything else." Nagisa rolled his eyes. The dragon tribes are mainly divided into three factions, the _Dusk_ , the _Dawn_ and the neutralists.

The _Dusk_ , which Akari belonged to, believes that it was impossible to negotiate with humans, so for them, the only solution was to be stronger and superior. This, of course, led to several violent confrontations which were the reasons that humans strongly disliked the _Dusk_.

The _Dawn_ , on the other hand, believed that it was possible for human and dragon to coexist as equals and had tried to regain a position in this land by negotiating and mixing in with the humans. Though they hadn't found much success with that, the _Dawn_ _Academy_ , a school for both dragon and human was the first and only achievement of that faction.

As for the neutralists, they were people who were fine with the current way of living. They had no intention of getting along with the humans and they didn't care about the position of their race on this land. They just want to live peacefully in their tribes.

Of course, there were also dragons with some wild and ridiculous ideas, but that was only the minority.

"You don't have to convince the humans, it's enough if our people believe you and take measures in protecting the young ones. Convincing the humans that it's partly their fault is what the _Dawn_ does." Nagisa simply shrugged.

"What do you believe in?", apparently, Nagisa's comment had piqued her interest.

"Me? I guess I'm fine with both." Nagisa shrugged after thinking about it for a second.

"Neutralist?" Akari wondered.

"Really? Do you see me sitting in my tribe and turning my thumbs?" Nagisa rolled his eyes and shook his head, "Anything but that."

"Hehe, you're right. What do you mean then?" Akari giggled quietly and asked.

"I guess I'm somewhere in between… the _Dusk_ is a little too extreme and the _Dawn_ is too optimistic." Nagisa said as he laid down and stared into the sky.

"Hmm." Akari nodded slightly.

"Feeling better, princess?" Nagisa suddenly asked with a cheesier tone.

"Huh? Oh…" Akari spaced out for a second and then realized what he was talking about, "Yeah… a lot." She answered still a little bit startled, "Hehe, thanks."

"Don't mention it, the _Dusk_ is going to gut me if their princess suddenly gets all depressed after teaming up with me for only 1 mission." Nagisa snickered and joked.

"… And there you go being a Jerk again." Akari rolled her eyes and laid down as well, "Hey, I think I found a codename for you.", she said.

"Oh? I thought you already had one.", Nagisa raised an eyebrow and said.

"Didn't know you liked it so much, guess I'll let it be then." Akari rolled her eyes again while also laying down.

"Hehe, alright, sorry. Let's hear it then." Nagisa apologized halfheartedly and said.

"Yoruhiru.", Akari said, "I feel like it suits you, while you act like an absolute jerk, you're actually quite a nice person."

"Thanks… I guess?" Nagisa said a bit unsurely, "Yoruhiru, huh… Night and day. I guess that'll work." Nagisa thought about a bit and nodded.

"But that's a bit long so I'll just call you Yoru." Akari added shortly after.

"… And why not Hiru?" Nagisa wondered.

"You're more of a jerk than a nice person.", she straight up said without even trying to make it sound nice.

"… I guess that's fair.", Nagisa shrugged with a silent snicker, "It's getting late, we should get going if we want to catch any sleep today."

"You're right… you know, it wasn't so bad teaming up with you, even though it's just a one-time-thing." Akari smiled and said while getting back up, "I think I'll head straight home, you can take the reward money, I don't really need it. Hope I'll see you around, maybe we can team up again from time to time."

"Heh, thanks. Oh! Ehh, I won't be taking any missions for the next week, I have some things to take care of. But I'll be at the hideout in 3 days. Until then we'll need to find a way of communication outside of meeting up at the hideout. I'll get going then, have a good night, princess." Were his last words before he jumped off the roof and disappeared into the darkness.

 _\- …Hatred against slavery… lost her brother… huge reaction when the slave camp on heaven hills was mentioned… prodigy wind mage… could it be? No… there's no way Kaede would turn into a killer… there's just no way… but I guess I'll stick around a bit longer… just in case. -_

"… Did he just…", Akari stood there startled, "… what a jerk.", she rolled her eyes letting out a small giggle. "He's a little bit like Nagisa… just more of a jerk." Akari said to herself and pulled her mask down revealing a sad smile. "3 days huh… guess I'll ask grandpapa.", she muttered to herself and started to run right towards the direction of the _Dawn_ _Academy_.

 **Hey hey :D Another new chapter, hope you guys liked it! Nagisa and Akari accidentally found out something huge, huh? There's not much to say about this chapter since I don't what to spoil anything.**

 **Tell me what you think about this chapter in the reviews! The next chapter will probably take quite a bit longer to come out since I'm getting really busy now.**

 **And as always, thank you so much for your support and I'll see you in the next chapter! ;)**


	14. Chapter 13

Nagisa quickly slit through the gap of his door before closing it and running into the bathroom before changing back into his shirt and hung his blazer into his wardrobe. With a quick flare of his scale, his appearance also turned back into his original form.

After putting his other attire back into his bag and stowing it into a drawer in the bathroom, Nagisa made his way back to his room and threw himself onto his bed. It was already way past midnight and he had to get up early tomorrow for his first lesson, so he had to use all the time he had left to get some rest.

Nagisa woke up by a loud _bang_ coming from outside his room and jumped out of his bed purely out of instinct. His heart was racing like crazy and he could still feel the slight vibration coming from the explosion. Without hesitating, Nagisa rushed out of his room only to see Karma standing in the middle of the living room while balancing different sizes of flames around. After squinting his eyes, Nagisa noticed that some of his flames looked somewhat… liquid.

"Oh hey, morning!" Karma snapped out of his focused state while raising an arm to greet Nagisa completely forgetting that he was still wielding a bunch of flames! A midsized fireball rushed straight towards Nagisa with incredible speed!

"Woah!" Nagisa yelped out of surprise while quickly conjuring some water with his mana and making an ice wall with his _Status Control_. The flame crashed into it and quickly dissolved, the weird thing was that Nagisa barely felt any heat or impact behind the blast.

"Huh, not bad." Karma watched with a smirk on his face, "Impressive reflexes."

"Did you do that on purpose?" Nagisa frowned slightly, if he purposely controlled the power and concentration behind the flame while wielding at least another dozen of flames at the same time, his mind must have been extremely well trained.

"No way." Karma just shrugged nonchalantly while putting his hand into the pockets of his pants, "Today is your first day huh? Want to go grab something to eat?" Karma suggested.

"I guess… what time is it?" Nagisa grunted before letting out a sigh, "I'll have to get to class on time."

"It's only a few minutes past 6, class doesn't start till 8." Karma answered, "Oh yeah, here.", he said while hurling a package towards Nagisa, "Your uniform has arrived just now, you'll probably want to shower and change.".

"6…thanks… just give me 10 minutes." Nagisa sighed and nodded while walking back to his room. So much for his plan to get as much sleep as possible…

The uniform he got was very different from the silver one he saw on his first day. All he got was a plain blue button up shirt with a black tie and some white trousers. Instead of the blazer with the emblem of the academy, he only got a pin with 2 stars that he could wear on his shirt.

Not that he was complaining, the shirt and trousers were finely made, and they were perfectly sized. It was just that he had really liked the blazer he had seen the day before. The school was also decent enough to provide them with 3 sets of uniforms instead of just 2. After quickly taking a shower, changing into his new uniform and grabbing his refilled pouch, Nagisa hurried downstairs.

While Nagisa was in his room, Karma took his time to change into his own uniform as well. Unlike Nagisa, Karma was wearing a dark red shirt with some black trousers and a black necktie. Judging by the colors, Nagisa could only assume that the shirts were colored with the element that they had. The other thing he had noticed was that Karma's pin had 4 stars! Which meant that he was either a stage 4 mage!

"So, where are we going?" Nagisa asked after hurrying down the stairs.

"Hmm, I'm sticking with the school's canteen. It's close by and they make decent food."

"If you say so, I've never been there so I can't judge." Nagisa simply nodded.

"Sure, just follow me." Karma smirked and started to walk ahead. "Say, you weren't in your room last night, right?".

Nagisa tensed up a little for a second before forcing himself to relax, "Hmm? Why would you say that?"

"I knocked on your door and you didn't answer so I went around towards your balcony." Karma explained while his smirk grew wider, "The door was being kept open by a chair when I got there."

"Ehh, I was just letting some fresh air in." Nagisa gulped silently and tried to explain, no way he was getting expelled on his first day!

"Cut the crap, Shiota, I went up your balcony and you definitely weren't in your room." Karma grinned evilly.

"… Yeah, I was out." Nagisa struggled for a second but admitted begrudgingly.

"And not just out of your room, but out of the academy, right?" Karma was getting more and more interested.

"Yes… are you going to report me?" Nagisa sighed helplessly, there was no way for him to silence Karma. He had nothing to bribe him with and beating him up was definitely not a choice either with him being a stage 4 AND being the principal's nephew. And there's also Karma's skill to account for. Nagisa had never seen Karma in combat but judging from the two little shows that he had seen by now, Karma was definitely not a pushover.

"Naa, I told you to mind your own business so I'm just gonna do the same, it's just that you're a lot more interesting than I have assumed." Karma just grinned and looked towards the sky, "Pretty nice weather today."

 _\- HUH?! He's not gonna do anything? –_

"Huh, thanks I guess." Nagisa's eye widened a bit from Karma's reaction, "Oh yeah by the way, about the smokescreen bullet you were working on, have you tried to lower the temperature of the bullet. It looked to me as if the explosion was caused because of an overheat due to your mana."

"Hmm? So you've noticed too?" this time Karma was genuinely surprised, "Yeah, that's the problem alright. But I have no way to keep the temperature in my room low enough. I am merging _Smokescreen_ and _Fire Bullet_ after all."

"Hmm, maybe I can help with that." Nagisa thought for a second before offering.

"How do you plan to do that?" Karma raised an eyebrow and asked.

"Like this." Nagisa grinned while gathering a fist-sized water ball in his palm before instantly turning it into ice with his _Status Control_. "If it's just your room, I can cool down all the water elements in your room and keep it at minus degrees while you work on your new spell."

"Ha, I'll take you up on that." Karma started to smirk uncontrollably, "If it works I'll let you be there when I test it out.".

"If it works I'll have to be there when you test it out on someone anyway." Nagisa just smiled back.

"Hehehe, you're really a lot more interesting than I thought. Welcome to the dorm Shiota." Karma grinned as they walked into the canteen.

"Just Nagisa is fine." Nagisa answered as he followed Karma into the building when a sudden burst of aroma hit him straight in the face, "Woah! What the heck?"

"I told you the canteen makes decent food." Karma just grinned when he saw Nagisa's face.

"Well… I wouldn't really call it decent if it tastes like it smells." Nagisa gulped slightly.

"How much do you have on you?" Karma asked after a silent snicker.

"Hmm, right now? About 20 Silver coins." Nagisa answered after weighing his pouch, he never takes all his money with him.

"Hmm, the canteen offers 3 different menus, the regular, deluxe and supreme menu. The regular cots 30 copper, the deluxe 5 silver and the supreme 1 gold." Karma explained, "What you're smelling right now is the supreme menu, the deluxe isn't bad either and the regular is, well, actual canteen food.".

"…I think I'll take the regular." Nagisa gulped after hearing the prices, the price gap between the meals was insane, after all, 100 copper coins equaled 1 silver coin and it was the same from silver to gold. Nagisa was by no means poor, from his mission the day before, Nagisa had saved up 10 gold by now, for a normal family that would've been enough money to live for months! But in this school, it was merely worth 10 meals!

Now he was really thankful that he had formed a partnership with Akari, with her aid Nagisa might be able to do more rewarding missions that were too dangerous to do alone, not that she'll ever know that…

"Forget that, it's my treat.", Karma gave Nagisa a slap on the back and walked straight towards the supreme counter.

"Ehh… thanks, but I can't do that.", Nagisa quickly followed and told Karma.

"Seriously, don't bother, it goes on my uncle's tab anyway.", Karma smirked.

"… Isn't that even worse?", Nagisa deadpanned.

"Naa, he doesn't even care, my parents are providing him with the ingredients here to begin with." Karma shrugged nonchalantly, "Oh yeah, forgot to mention, they use magical beasts and plants as ingredients for the supreme menu."

"… No wonder.", Nagisa finally understood why the food was so overpriced. The reason humans and dragons were able to become mages or combatants is because mana and aura naturally exist in the atmosphere in the first place. Becoming a mage or combatant is only a process of being able to control either of them and turning them into their own.

So if humans and dragons were able to do that, naturally there are also animals and plants who accidentally managed to absorb mana or aura from the atmosphere. And poof, magical beasts and plants came into existence.

There were rumors that a high-level magical beast has the same level of intelligence as a human or a dragon, but all the magical beasts Nagisa had met in the mountains in his three years of training were merely ridiculously strong versions of their race or mutated versions that were able to breathe fire and creates windstorms and so on. But if there was one thing Nagisa remembered about them, it had to be that they were absolutely delicious.

Nagisa still remembered the night where he had managed to slay his first magical boar and Kagero had roasted it for dinner.

"Hey, you want pork or chicken?" Karma was already at the end of the line when Nagisa came back from the initial shock.

"Ehh, pork," Nagisa answered subconsciously before he remembered that he was supposed to decline. So, in the end, he just decided that he would let it be.

"Here you go.", it didn't take long, and Karma came back with two huge tablets and handed one to Nagisa. The portions were huge but very balanced, Nagisa's meal had 3 Porkchops, a huge serving of fried potatoes and some stir-fried vegetables at the side. For a normal 13-year-old child this would be way too much food, but for mages or combatants, all this food was needed to keep them going in there training through the day. The menu also included a free drink and any kind of dessert that was available for the day… but there was just one problem for Nagisa.

"Thanks, but ehh… that's what we get for breakfast?!", Nagisa took his tablet from Karma's hand and asked. Don't get him wrong, the menu was great, and the food looked really appetizing, it was just that this was not what Nagisa would see as a typical breakfast.

"Well no, technically this is the lunch menu since the canteen doesn't really serve breakfast. Why do you think there are barely any people here?", Karma shrugged as they just randomly took a seat since most of the tables were completely empty. "Most of the students either eat breakfast at their dorm or get something outside of the academy."

"I see… so why are we here?", Nagisa wondered as he took his first bite. The flavor was just as he had remembered, just a lot of times better! This meal was prepared by professional cooks after all! While Kagero was decent at cooking, he was just doing it as something he had to do to survive. On top of that, he barely had any spices to work with.

"Meh… I don't feel like cooking myself and getting something from outside is too much of a hassle. And well, I don't really understand the concept of why people divide food into breakfast items or lunch and dinner items. As long as it tastes good and has the nutrition's, I don't care.", Karma just shrugged while taking a huge gulp from his bottle.

"Well… you're not wrong.", Nagisa easily accepted Karma's opinion and continued to dig in. Quite frankly, he was pretty much used to eating whatever he could find for any meal. It wasn't like he had had the choice when he was living in the mountains.

The rest of the meal went by with Karma telling Nagisa the concept of his smokescreen bullets and what they would have to be careful of when they were going to make them. By the time they were done, it was already 7:30 and Nagisa decided it was time for him to go to his class.

"Which class are you in?", Karma asked while strolling along with Nagisa.

"Second-grade class C.", Nagisa answered, "But I guess I won't be there for long anymore."

"Hmm? You're about to break through?", Karma smirked and asked, "You just turned 13, right? Not bad at all."

 _\- Heh… if you knew I only started 3 and a half years ago... -_

"Yeah, I think in a week or 2.", Nagisa just laughed it off and said, "But I'll still have to go there before that happens."

"Every grade has its own area, they're quite easy to find. I'll be heading back now so have fun.", Karma told Nagisa, shrugged and turned around.

"Wait, don't you have classes?", Nagisa wondered and asked him.

"Technically I do, but they don't really teach me anything and I can't do my experiments there so naa.", was the last thing Karma said before he disappeared from Nagisa's sight.

Nagisa was shocked at first, but after he thought about it for a bit he realized that it made complete sense. Karma was able to fuse different spells together, for that you need a perfect understanding of all the basic spells which are taught in class. So yeah, Karma indeed didn't need to go to class anymore.

Unfortunately, Nagisa was the complete opposite, he had absolutely no knowledge of any spells except _Healing Touch_. As an almost stage 3 mage, all he could do with his mana was use them for his **Unique Skills**.

He quickly found the area for the second grade. It was a huge building that was decided into 5 parts. Each part was a single classroom with its own training field. After finding the part that had a huge "C" at the entrance, Nagisa quickly found the position of his classroom.

Rather than a classroom, it was a class-building that was equipped with a classroom, a completely isolated room that was built to resist any kind of impact for demonstrations and practicing new spells, and last but not least, a first aid center in case a student messed up and hurt himself or a classmate.

* * *

"Class, we have a new transfer student today.", since Nagisa was a little bit early, it still took a while until classes finally started. It felt a bit odd to be standing in front of a bunch of people roughly about his age. He was around the middle when I came to the age of the students in this class but considering that he only started training a little bit more than 3 years ago and that he was already nearing the next stage, he was doing quite good. "Please introduce yourself."

The teacher was a gentle looking middle-aged man around his 50's wearing a very typical mage robe. An emblem with a light green mana crystal and 5 starts under it was pinned to his right shoulder and showed that he was a stage 5 wind mage. He didn't wear any gloves and there were no scales on his hands, so he was most likely human. There's always the possibility of him using illusion magic or a magical item with similar effects.

"I'm Shiota Nagisa, just turned 13, I'm from the dragon tribes and a water mage. Nice to meet you.", Nagisa introduced himself a bit awkwardly. It has been a while that he's been speaking in front of a large group of people in his real appearance. When he was in his disguise for his work at the branch organization of the dusk, it felt rather easy since no one knew who the other one really was.

"Ehh? A 13-year-old dragon and only just got into the second grade? Guess not all dragons are gifted. Is he even qualified to be in this school?", a kid not wearing the school's uniform but some unnecessary fancy looking clothes blurted out loud which made Nagisa raise his eyebrows a little.

A transfer in the middle of the semester is usually only possible through breakthroughs. So naturally, the students in this class assumed that Nagisa had just reached the second stage with the age of 13, which would be pretty mediocre even among humans.

 _\- Annoying… overconfident… has some kind of pride issue when facing a dragons… -_

Was what ran through Nagisa's mind after hearing what the kid had to say. But since he won't be staying in this class for long anyway, Nagisa simply let the comment slide and looked at the teacher asking him to continue.

"Well, hope you'll all get along with Mr Shiota. My name is Leim, just go ahead and sit at any free table please.", the teacher told Nagisa with a confusing respecting tone.

"Ehh, sure. Thank you.", Nagisa answered a bit weirded out by the way the teacher talked to him. What he didn't know was, that this was the standard way of addressing the students in this school.

The students of this school were picked with very high standards, and on top of that, you had to have some kind of recommendation to even be allowed to take the entry test. As a result, only human children of wealthy, or noble families with high potential were allowed to attend this school. On the other side, almost all the children of dragon families that support the _Dawn_ have joined this academy.

"Mr. Leim?" Nagisa suddenly remembered something just when he sat down on a random table, "Can you give me the spells for the rank 2 water spells after class?".

"Huh?... Uhh, of course, just remind me again when classes are over.", Leim seemed a little bit confused since he knew that Nagisa was a stage 2 level 9 mage and not a just-promoted mage like the students assumed.

Nagisa demand only further stabilized the students' assumption and it didn't take long and all the interest in Nagisa has faded. And Nagisa was fine with that, he came here to learn more about magic, the opinion of his classmates didn't really bother him… at least as long as they leave him alone.

 **And there we go, Nagisa's first lesson in the academy and first decent interaction with Karma. What do you think?**

 **That's actually all I have to say about this chapter :D, tell me what you think about it in the reviews!**

 **And as always, thank you so much for your support and I'll see you in the next chapter! ;)**


	15. Chapter 14

Classes were fairly boring to Nagisa on the first day. Instead of talking about the basic spells and the ancient spell language, Leim decided to teach the students about the nature of the elements. Something Nagisa already had an excellent understanding of due to Kagero's teaching.

After classes ended, Nagisa quickly followed Leim for the basic spells that he needed and made his way back to his "Dorm". "Hey, new guy!", Nagisa suddenly heard someone call but didn't react.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!", Nagisa silently sighed and rolled his eyes when he felt a hand landing on his shoulder. He had already recognized the person by his voice, it was the same boy that made fun of him who didn't wear the school uniform.

"Oh, it's you.", Nagisa just replied blandly, "Something the matter?".

"Some people from the other classes wanted to see the talentless water dragon I was talking about, so come with me.", Nagisa was slightly amazed how he was able to say that so naturally.

"No time.", Nagisa just shook his head, took the hand from his shoulder and continued walking.

"I wasn't inviting you.", the boys face instantly turned dark, "Do you know who I am?".

"No.", Nagisa sighed again when the boy stepped in front of him and stopped him in his tracks.

"I'm the son of Duke Jeremiah Larson!", the boy announced proudly, "So you better know what you're supposed to do."

"…Duke? Jeremiah Larson?", Nagisa raised an eyebrow in confusion. He knew that there was a Duchess named Micaiah who was also the emperor's sister, but he had never heard of any Jeremiah.

"Hmpf! Should've expected this from such an uneducated race. My father has been promoted recently directly from an Earl to a Duke!", the boy bragged loudly, "And I am his one and only son, Raphael Larson, a stage 2 level 8 earth mage with the age of 13!"

Nagisa instantly stopped moving after hearing what Raphael had told him as something suddenly rushed through his mind… _A few years ago, minor nobles like me were asked if we had any interest in it, they had p-promised me the Viscount title if I worked for their goal…_ As for Raphael's mana level, Nagisa had subconsciously ignored it

A promotion from an Earl straight to a Duke didn't make any sense! And there wasn't any kind of celebration or announcements for this promotion! Everything had just happened so silently that Nagisa couldn't help but suspect this.

"I see you understand now.", Raphael grinned satisfied since Nagisa's sudden reaction there looked like shock in his eyes, "Follow me.".

"No time.", Nagisa gave him the exact same answer again and proceeded to walk around him. He wasn't going to be in this class for long, so he really had no intention of getting in trouble with one of his classmates in that short amount of time.

But Nagisa had misjudged the situation. Trying to avoid any kind of interaction might work with normal people, but to a conceited noble like Raphael, avoiding or rejecting his offer was an act of huge disrespect!

"Guess I'll have to make you.", Nagisa heard how Raphael said behind him and starting to chant a spell. As soon as the chanting had finished the sound of something flying through the air approached him from behind.

 _\- Are you kidding me… and on my first day?! -_

Nagisa let out another sigh before swiftly rolling to the side to dodge the attack coming from behind him.

With a loud crash, a rock about the size of his head crashed into the ground about 50 meters in front of him.

 _\- WOAH! He was aiming for my head with that! That could've been fatal! -_

As a spoiled 13-year-old kid who had gotten everything he had ever wanted since his birth and rarely got into any fights, Raphael, of course, had no idea what was appropriate in a situation like this. To him, Nagisa was a stage 2 mage as well and a dragon nonetheless, so in his mind, if he wanted to subdue Nagisa, he had to give it his all. Nagisa dodging his attack only made him more convinced of himself. Little did he know that any other student in their class would've at least been badly hurt or most likely killed with that! Most of them don't have any combat experience after all.

"Are you crazy?!", Nagisa finally snapped! Even if he wanted to avoid getting into trouble, there was no way he could just act like nothing had happened after someone had tried to take his life!

"Heh, don't call yourself a mage if you can't defend yourself against that!", was all Raphael answered as he prepared his second spell.

"You have to be kidding me… stop that! You'll cause way too much damage!", Nagisa couldn't believe his ears when he heard a few words of the spell Raphael was chanting! Words that meant _split, crack and spread_ were contained in the spell!

The spell was called _Fissure_ , a basic spell that earth mages used throughout their entire career since it was a spell that evolved depending on the mana input. The spell could create cracks in the ground that would rapidly spread out. The depth, size, and number of the cracks would increase with the mana input.

Usually, the spell would be absolutely harmless in the hands of a low-level mage like Raphael, but the problem was that they were still near a bunch of buildings. While the cracks he could create weren't that huge and deep, it could still easily make an entire building collapse if it would hit the wrong spot. Since classes had just ended, there were still a bunch of students and teachers inside these buildings!

"Hehe, just run if you're scared!", Raphael completely ignored Nagisa and was acting all high and mighty thinking that Nagisa was fearing him.

"Idiot…", Nagisa grit his teeth and was about to use his aura. Even though Nagisa's mana level was slightly above Raphael's, he didn't know any spells to stop him with. As for his **Unique Skill,** he had never used it on a mage before, so he couldn't guarantee how effective it would be.

 _\- Just a slight nudge to the stomach should be fine… -_

Nagisa thought to himself as he was just about to covered his legs with his aura to boost his speed to the maximum. "That's enough!", but just before Nagisa was about to lunge at the Raphael, a person suddenly appeared right behind the spoiled noble.

With a single flick of his hand, the man had used his own energy to interrupt Raphael's connection to the surrounding earth elements and neutralized the changes that were about to be brought to them, thus canceling Raphael's spell as if it had never been there.

"What were you thinking?! Casting a large area destruction spell inside the academia?!", now that the danger was gone, Nagisa finally took a better look at the unexpected help that appeared. The man had short and spiky black hair, had a tall and solid figure and had a stern look on his rather handsome face.

"V-vice principal Karasuma.", Nagisa first thought that he was seeing things, but after rubbing his eyes and looking at this scene again, he was shocked. The spoiled and arrogant brat was shivering slightly while fear and respect were showing from his eyes.

 _\- Vice principal? …He looks pretty young. –_

"And you! What is a combatant like you doing in the magic department?" Karasuma questioned Nagisa calmly but somehow Nagisa was feeling some immense pressure coming from him.

 _\- D-did he sense my aura?! No… it can't be! I didn't even have the time to cover my legs with it! It barely left the pool! -_

"I'm a second-grade mage student, sir.", Nagisa gulped silently and answered with a strong voice while his mind was a complete mess.

"A mage?", Karasuma frowned slightly and eyed Nagisa suspiciously, "That stance you took did not look like a stance a mage would take to cast a spell."

"I ehh, I started off as a combatant… I know some basic martial art.", Nagisa simply decided to grit his teeth and lie his way through this.

"Hmm… you already managed to create aura and then switched over to a mage?", the suspicion in Karasuma's eyes was fading but now he had a disapproving look on his face instead.

"Y-yes…", Nagisa's smile looked a bit awkward as he answered, "I found out that I had more talent in being a mage." Nagisa forced his explanation out and released his mana from his pool as if to prove a point.

"I see… the academy will give you some kind of compensation for this incident, in which dorm do you live?", Karasuma finally nodded and Nagisa suddenly felt all the pressure surrounding him fade. Breathing also felt a lot easier than before.

 _\- That's… scary. -_

Nagisa let out a long and relieved breath before answering: "Ehh, I'm living in the principal's mansion right now, with his nephew."

"Hmm, I see.", Karasuma simply nodded and turned his eyes back to Raphael who was still shivering while Karasuma had a hand on his shoulder, "You're coming with me, if it were to me I would expel you on the spot, but I'll ask the principal before that."

"What?! Expel? I-I don't understand, what did I do wrong?", the color on Raphael's face instantly faded.

Instead of answering, Karasuma just shook his head disapprovingly and then simply disappeared from the spot with Raphael.

"… What the hell.", Nagisa let out a long and tired sigh, "There goes my plan of keeping a low profile…", Nagisa muttered while looking at all the surrounding students that were staring at him and whispering between themselves. "Just great…", Nagisa muttered a bit frustratedly, turned around and continued to head back to the mansion.

* * *

"What happened here?", a young girl with long wavy green hair tapped the shoulder of a student who had been watching the entire scene with Nagisa and Raphael.

"Wha- Woah!", the student she was talking to seemed extremely surprised by her presence, "Ehh?! What are you doing here senpai?", the boy asked a little bit confused. The girl that was talking to him had 3 stars on her badge that she was wearing and there for a third-grade student.

The girl was clearly younger than the boy she was talking to, but age didn't really matter in this academy, people were called senpai as long as they had a higher mana or aura level.

"I was heading back to the dorm but heard some commotion here, what happened?", the girl asked rather coldly.

"I'm not sure, but a second-grade student called Raphael attacked a new student out of nowhere, you know, the son of the newly promoted Duke?", the boy explained, "I think he was about to unleash a large-scale spell, but the vice principal showed up in time and stopped him. They're now heading to the principal."

"Newly promoted Duke?", the girl muttered while a small frown appeared on her face.

"Oh, I don't know the details, but somehow he got promoted from Earl straight to Duke, guess he must have done something amazing.", the student just shrugged, things like this didn't really matter to the average student.

"Hmm… what happened to the new student?", the green haired girl seemed to have thought about something but quickly followed with another question.

"Oh, that water dragon? Nothing happened to him, but it's weird, I know that he was a second-grade student as well, but it didn't look like he was going to use any spells to defend himself.", the boy questioned.

"Maybe he was too shocked?", the girl suggested.

"I don't think so, he was still dodging and talking fairly calmly, well until Raphael was about to unleash his last spell.", the boy shook his head.

"Hmm? I see, thanks.", was the last thing the boy heard before it seemed like the girl had just disappeared suddenly. When he turned around, she was already fairly far away from him while casually walking on the side of the street. What astonished the boy was how unnaturally fast she was moving, and that there were no audible footsteps coming from her while strange whirls of winds were gathering everywhere she had laid foot on.

* * *

"Jo, Nagisa! Only the first day and everyone's already talking about you huh? You really are interesting.", when Nagisa opened the door he was greeted by Karma who was sitting in the living room's couch and polishing a huge broadsword.

"Not by choice if you will please…", Nagisa sighed and dropped himself on the armchair next to the couch, "I thought you are a mage? What are you doing with a sword? And such a huge one?"

"Ahh… this is my staff.", Karma shrugged casually while lifting the blade into the sunlight for observation, "See the mana crystal on the hilt?"

"…Why in hell?", Nagisa was extremely confused, "What's the point of that?"

"Can't tell ya, not sure, but I guess there is a chance you'll get there as well.", Karma simply played it off while resuming to polish his blade, "Let's just say only a certain few students have to do that."

"…Hmm, the idea isn't bad though.", Nagisa quickly sunk into his own thoughts, since he was both a mage and a combatant, this sort of weapon would suit him fairly well.

"Well making these isn't easy, materials that can transfer mana and are sturdy enough to be used as weapons are quite rare.", Karma just shrugged again while putting his broadsword aside, "Wanna try making that smokescreen bullet?"

"Hmm sure, I have nothing else to do at the moment anyway.", Nagisa thought about it for a second and agreed.

"Nice! Comon!", Karma grinned excitedly.

* * *

 _…_ _ **BOOM!**_

"JESUS!", Nagisa and Karma stormed out of Karma's room alongside a huge cloud of smoke while coughing like crazy.

"Urgh… I think I swallowed some.", Nagisa knelt down to the ground and grunted while gagging slightly.

"Damn… so still a no go huh.", Karma simply let himself fall on his back and sighed, "Ahhh and it looked so good as well.", Karma scratched his head a bit frustrated.

"Well… how long was it? 5 minutes?", Nagisa asked after getting back up and opening a few windows.

"Yeah, somewhere about that.", Karma nodded.

The experiment had worked pretty well at first, with Nagisa controlling the temperature of the room, Karma managed to merge and stabilize the _Smokescreen_ and _Fire Bullet_ spell together and actually produced a few pitch-black bullet shaped smoke projectiles.

Thinking that they've succeeded, Nagisa stopped manipulating the temperature inside the room while Karma was still playing around with the new product of his spell.

In all the excitement, they've both completely disregarded the changes inside the bullets as the temperature of the room started to rise again. The bullet quickly started to become unstable again as the fire elements started to return to their wild and explosive nature without the restraint from Nagisa.

So in the end, the bullets simply exploded while they were still discussing how they could improve the new spell.

"The issue is still that you insist on them being containable and pressed into the size of a jellybean. It would be so much easier if you would make it the size of the palm of your hand.", Nagisa suggested, "The energy is way too concentrated with that tiny amount of space."

"Naa that won't do.", Karma just shook his head in denial, "People can't swallow something that huge by accident."

"…Ah, right.", Nagisa deadpanned, he had completely forgotten Karma's initial reason for trying to create this spell, "Ehh… crap.", Nagisa's tone suddenly changed mid-sentence.

"Huh? What's up?", Karma shifted around to look towards Nagisa. He was shocked for a second, but it soon turned into an annoyed grunt, "You have to be shitting me…"

Nagisa on the other side had already sat down and had both his eyes closed while a visible swirl of elements started to surround him. Due to his unexpectedly huge use of mana on his last mission and again for Karma's experiment just now, his breakthrough came a lot earlier than he had thought.

"I'm pretty low on mana myself you know…", Karma rolled his eyes and complained knowing that Nagisa probably wasn't listening anyway, but still sat down behind him and placed both his hands on his shoulder.

What Karma didn't know was that this was the first time Nagisa had had any assist during a breakthrough. At his first time, Kaede had a fever by chance and therefore couldn't provide him the support. The second time was with Kagero, while Kagero had a really high rank, he was a pure combatant and had no mana at all.

"H-huh?", to Karma's surprise, Nagisa showed close to no reaction to his pool being forcefully expanded by his spinning mana which was supposed to be extremely painful. What he didn't know was that Nagisa was in awe himself. He was used to rough and painful breakthroughs, but right now his mana pool was still expanding at a decent speed, but it was so easy to actually control the process!

"Whoo! That felt great!", Nagisa opened his eyes and exclaimed happily when he had finally completed his breakthrough. Rather than exhausted, which was how he used to feel after his breakthroughs, he felt strangely refreshed and energetic.

"Wait? You're done?!", Karma who was still sitting behind him on the floor with his hands on his back looked at him dumbfounded. Which was an extremely rare expression to appear on his face.

"Yeah! Huh… oh, so you've been assisting me huh? That explains a lot, thanks Karma!", Nagisa quickly put the pieces together as expressed his gratitude.

"Dude! You took 15 minutes!", Karma looked at Nagisa like a monster.

"15 minutes?! So long?", Nagisa was equally shocked, his last two breakthroughs barely lasted for more than 5 minutes.

"LONG?! Breakthroughs usually take around an hour! You just finished within 15 minutes, and with such ease on top of that!", Karma removed his hands from Nagisa's back and shouted.

"An hour?! How is that even possible?", Nagisa eyes widened in shock.

"Normally, you have someone with a much higher mana level to assist you in your breakthrough, which I usually would have, but I've used up most of it in our experiments, so I could only offer limited support in slowing down your expansion… so I had to let your pool expand at a faster rate than usual, but you didn't seem to mind at all, or rather you seemed so relaxed?", Karma started to rattle on while sinking into his own thoughts. "It's as if you're used to this… but that doesn't make any sense…"

"Wait… you slow down the breakthrough that much?", Nagisa who was listening and taking mental notes the entire time finally asked after Karma had finished, "I've never had someone assist me before so I don't really know."

"… Come again?", Karma blanked out for a second and asked, "Like not at all?"

"Yeah, all the two breakthroughs from before.", Nagisa nodded, "So it felt really easy this time with your help."

"I see… that would make sense. Your pool got used to such aggressive actions… does that mean I could increase the stability of my pool by doing breakthroughs without any assistance?", Karma frowned a little, "No… that wouldn't work, the expansion would straight up burst my pool, it only works because you started doing that right from the beginning when the expansions were still rather small, you built up the sturdiness of your pool step by step… Jo Nagisa! From now on, try doing every breakthrough with the minimum amount of assistance possible."

"Huh? Why?", Nagisa asked. Now that he had seen how relaxing a breakthrough could be with just a tiny bit of assistance, he never wanted to experience that pain of a breakthrough without it anymore.

"Through your rough breakthroughs, your mana pool has become a lot sturdier than any other mages pools. Traditionally, every mage's first breakthrough has to be assisted by a mage that has at least reached the fourth stage to make the first breakthrough as easy as possible.", Karma started, "That's why this knowledge is unknown to even our academy right now because every single mage that studies in this academy had received the assistance of another mage."

"Okay…?"

"But apparently, having your first breakthrough without, or with a limited amount of help, strengthens the sturdiness of our mana pool immensely! That means you can unleash way more mana instantly than your average mage.", Karma continued, "Since their pool wouldn't be able to withstand that much strain and pressure."

"Hmm, wait does that mean!", Nagisa gave Karma's explanation a bit of thought and finally caught on.

"Yes! Theoretically, you have to potential to forcefully use spells that are usually beyond your current level!", Karma nodded, "It's too late for me now, since I can't start over and strengthen my pool with the smaller expansions of the earlier breakthroughs, if I start using this method now, I would only damage my pool permanently."

"So you're saying that I could technically use rank 4 spells now?", Nagisa asked excitedly.

"Technically yes, but I wouldn't try doing that on a usual basis. Usually using spells that are beyond your current level would either burst you pool and ruin your career as a mage or instantly kill you. I'm not sure how much sturdier your pool is than normal, but you should definitely be able to use a higher ranked spell without having your pool taking permanent damage. But it could still render you useless for that moment."

"I see…", Nagisa nodded, "but I could keep it as a last resort."

"Exactly!", Karma agreed, "That's why I'm saying that you shouldn't have too much assistance in your future breakthroughs even if you can."

"Hmm, I see, thanks a lot Karma!", Nagisa grinned while giving Karma a light punch against his shoulder, Nagisa wasn't showing it in his actions at all, but he was astonished by Karma's knowledge, he was pretty sure that even official teachers would need more time to explain Nagisa's special case let alone reveal the advantage of his past actions. Nagisa already knew that Karma was really intelligent, but it seemed like Nagisa still underestimated just how intelligent Karma really was.

"Don't mention it! I'm interested to see to what extent the effects of your action it will actually have.", Karma just shrugged it off, "But what you should do right now is to report in that you've broken through, the office closes in a few minutes… unless you still want to go to second-grade classes tomorrow."

"Crap!", was all that Nagisa said when he jumped on his feet and stormed outside.

"…A stage 3 combatant?", Karma simply sat there and waited until Nagisa was out of sight when he muttered silently while staring in the direction Nagisa had left in. "This guy is getting really interesting."

 **There we go! Finally managed to write a new chapter! I've been so busy lately that I didn't get the time to write anything at all! I've started an internship recently so I've got my studies and work on top of that to worry about now! Also, my family came back to Germany so I have to spend time with them as well.**

 **I can't really say that I'm back since I still can't update like I used to do, but I will try to bring out a new chapter every now and then. Just know that I will never give up on my stories, that much I can promise you!**

 **Tell me what you think about this chapter? It turned out longer than I had expected.**

 **And as always, thank you so much for your support, sorry for the lack of updates, and I'll see you in the next chapter! ;)**


	16. Chapter 15

When Nagisa finished his test to prove his breakthrough and finished all the registrations for the new grade, it was already late in the afternoon. He had also received a new pin for his uniform with 3 stars on it.

Deciding that he was getting hungry, he quickly went back to the mansion to see if Karma was interested in getting something to eat in town. He had to go and buy some groceries now that he had settled down in this place.

"Hmm? Naa, I'll be fine," Karma simply waved it off when Nagisa asked him if he wanted to go into town, "I still have some leftovers from yesterday."

"Alright, see you later then, I guess," Nagisa nodded and left again.

Nagisa swiftly walked to the front gate of the academy, registered his leave at the entrance and made his way into the city center.

Since it was still a little bit too early to eat, Nagisa first went to get some things for his room. He bought some towels, toothbrush, and paste and all the things you needed in your bathroom, a new set of pajamas, a blanket including covers for both the blanket and the mattress.

After he was done with all that, he simply bought a few meat buns at the side of a street and made his way back to the academy. They had quite a strict curfew after all.

Once he was back at the mansion, he gave Karma a quick heads up and went into his own room to set everything up. Once he was done with that, he spent the rest of his time learning the new spells that he had gotten from his extremely short-lived homeroom teacher today.

While he had access to most of the rank 2 spells, he would only learn a handful of them. Trying to learn every single spell would be a waste of energy and time. It was way more efficient to have a few spells that you excelled in than having a bunch of spells that you are rather uncomfortable with.

In the end, Nagisa settled with _Water Pistol_ and _Prison Sphere_ for his smaller spells, and _Raging Pillar_ as his larger spell. _Raging Pillar_ was similar to _Fissure_ , the spell that Raphael tried to use before. It was a spell that would evolve with the level of the mage and increase in power with the amount of mana poured into the spell.

After getting a general idea of the three spells he had selected, Nagisa noticed that it was already getting fairly late. Suddenly realizing that he was throughout exhausted and tired, Nagisa remembered that he hadn't had a good night rest for quite some days now and decided to call it a day.

* * *

Kaede sighed while she slowly walked towards her classroom. She had broken through the third stage the day before and was now officially a stage 4 mage. But her breakthrough happened only after dinner and by the time she was done, all the offices were already closed.

Frankly, she hated everything about this academy… it's been a while since she's been here. If it wasn't obvious, the dawn academy is co-created by the dawn faction of the dragons and the royal family of the humans and thus the closest thing to both these factions without actually having to be part on any of these.

While the dawn simply wanted to show that the coexistence of dragons and humans was possible, the humans saw it as a good chance to siphon some knowledge about magic from the ancient dragon tribes and maybe even recruit some to their own society.

Kaede was sent here by her grandfather so she could gather information about both of these factions, find out what they are planning so that the dusk could make precautions if something big was about to happen.

But considering everything she was supposed to do, she had only been granted permission to do work behind the scenes, if she had found out anything, she had only been allowed to deliver the information to the nearest side branch of the dusk and leave the actual inspection to them.

Only recently had her grandfather allowed her to start working actively, but at the same time had placed this ridiculous condition! She had to find a potential recruit for the dusk! But not just any recruit! He or she had to be around the same age as her and have about the same mana or aura level! Which was absolutely insane! Even though she hated that title, but she wasn't being called the prodigy of centuries for no reason!

Of course, there were still other people like her around, but people like them won't be hanging around in a side branch of the dusk just like that! They'll be given special training since the moment they're compatibility test had ended!

But somehow, she had actually found someone like that! A young boy who had an aura level that was just acceptably beneath her mana level. He seemed quite annoying at first but after their first mission together she had realized that she actually quite enjoyed his random, and most of the time, unnecessary comments.

But all of that only made her academy life so much blander… she didn't manage to find a single friend for the entire year that she had been here now. There were people that actually tried to befriend her, but after she had rejected multiple invitations of them to hang out, these also started to vanish.

She wasn't being bullied either, she just had a neutral relationship with everybody, in other words, she had separated herself from every single person in this academy. So, for an entire year now it had been nothing but wake up, eat, go to school, eat, go back to her dorm, eat and sleep. Well, except for the occasional missions she had gotten from her grandfather.

Well… she was going to be promoted to the fourth grade today… which meant she will have to repeat the entire process of separating herself from her class, AGAIN.

Without even realizing it, Kaede had already arrived in her classroom while her mind was busy with her own thoughts. Letting out another silent sigh, she opened the door and walked into it. Her homeroom teacher wasn't there yet, but there were already a few students chatting in the classroom.

As soon as Kaede entered the classroom, all of her classmates took a quick second to look at who had entered, but after realizing that it was her, they simply went back to their previous conversations without even bothering to greet her. Not being bothered by that at all, Kaede just silently walked towards the edge of the classroom and sat down on a seat completely isolated from the rest of the class.

The classrooms they had were equipped with tables and chairs to supply 30 students. But since there weren't nearly that many students in each year, each class only had around 10-15 students. There was a rare situation of having almost as many teachers as students going on in this academy.

Needlessly to say, Kaede always took the seat that was the furthest away from the rest of the students with her objective being to be isolated. Her homeroom teacher had tried several times to convince her to change her seat but had given up after being politely rejected repeatedly.

It didn't take long until her homeroom teacher finally entered the classroom. And as soon as she did, Kaede instantly stood up and walked towards the desk, "Miss Ley, can I talk to you for a moment?", Kaede asked her before she could even put down her bag.

"Of course, Kayano-san. But please wait for a little, I have an announcement to make, after that we can talk okay?", the homeroom teacher called Ley asked Kaede.

"It won't take long, can we please talk about it now?", Kaede insisted, "I actually just need your permission."

"Hmm… what is it?", Miss Ley gave it some thought and asked Kaede.

"I've broken through.", Kaede went straight to the point, "But it was already after all the offices were closed when I did, so I need your permission to leave class and take the test right now."

"Oh! Congratulations, Kayano-san, of course, you can leave.", Miss Ley wasn't really surprised by the news, Kaede was lingering at stage 3 level 9 for quite a while now so it was about to happen anyway.

"Thank you very much, thank you for all the years.", Kaede said and bowed slightly before getting her bag and leaving the classroom.

"Alright everyone!", Miss Ley quickly organized her belongings and started after Kaede had already left, "I have two announcements to make today! First, Kayano-san had broken through the third stage, so she will be leaving our class starting today. But at the same time, we will also welcome a new student, now please try to get along with him!"

* * *

Nagisa sighed while walking towards his new classroom. Nobody had told him that just registering his breakthrough wasn't enough to join the new class! There was a lot of other paperwork involved when entering a new class.

So, after being informed of that just barely 30 minutes before class started, Nagisa rushed to the office and rushed through all the paperwork that had to be done. And now that he was finished, he still had less than 5 minutes.

The office he went to was on the third floor, and to save himself some time, Nagisa decided to jump out of the window in the hallway instead of walking down the stairs. What he didn't know was, that the exact second he went out of the window, a certain green-haired girl had just walked up the stairs right behind him…

"… Nice to meet you.", after Nagisa finally got to his new classroom, his new homeroom teacher Miss Ley asked him to introduce himself, "my name is Nagisa and I'm from the water tribe.", was all Nagisa said, again.

There was a short moment of silence since Miss Ley expected Nagisa so say a bit more, but she then awkwardly realized that Nagisa had no intention of saying another word, "ehmm right, so why don't you pick a seat, Shiota-san."

"Alright.", Nagisa gave her a nod and started to walk towards the class, but to Miss Ley's dismay, Nagisa sat down on the exact seat that had just become free a few minutes ago.

"Ehmm, Shiota-san… wouldn't it be better if you sat with your classmates?", Miss Ley desperately tried to convince him.

"Hmm… I'm fine, thank you.", Nagisa simply answered innocently while starting to unpack his back.

 _\- Another one of these students?! What is going on?! -_

 **Oof, finally managed to finish this chapter :/ I've been really busy for the last few months but it's getting better now so I'll probably start having more time for writing again.**

 **I'm not sure how many of you guys are still here after possibly the longest break I've taken without updating but I still want to thank everyone who had been or still are patiently waiting for an update. I'm terribly sorry for the rather inconsistent updates.**

 **But all in all, I hope you still enjoy the chapter, please tell me what you think about it in the reviews, and hopefully I'll see you soon in the next chapter! ;)**


	17. Chapter 16

Nagisa had never been so busy before, just with his breakthrough, he now had access to rank three spells just 1 day after he had just started practicing the rank two spells. While _Raging pillar_ was an evolving spell, _Water Pistol_ and _Prison Sphere_ were just ordinary rank two spells.

After reading through all the new spells, Nagisa decided to abandon _Water Pistol_ and replace it with a rank 2 healing spell _Cleanse._ The healing effect of _Cleanse_ wasn't much better than the rank 1 spell _Healing Touch,_ but what it did bring to the table was the ability to remove negative substances, like poison, from the body, at least to a certain degree.

To fill the slot for his now missing offensive spell, Nagisa chose the evolving rank three spell _Bullet Rain_. Realizing that it would be a pain to keep refreshing his spell arsenal, Nagisa decided to mostly focus on evolving spells while only learning the unique spells in the future.

It was still early after Nagisa had decided on his spells, so he decided to practice a bit more in the garden.

* * *

"Hmm? What do you mean I won't be assigned to any class in the 4th grade?" Kaede asked with a slightly annoyed but mostly confused face.

When she had gone to register her breakthrough this morning, the person in charge there had told her that they couldn't assign her to any class yet since the vice principal wanted to talk to her personally. That's also why Kaede didn't go to any classes today and was just lazing around in her room.

Now the vice principal, Karasuma, was suddenly standing at her dorm's door and told her that she won't be assigned to any class!

"You probably heard that I've started to make a special class recently." Karasuma calmly explained, "I want you to in it."

"Hmm? Why?" Kaede looked at Karasuma suspiciously and asked, "I just turned into a stage 4 mage, there a lot of stronger students in this academy."

"I'm not just looking for strong students. That would be pointless. What I'm looking for are students with superior potential that can't be fully developed by normal classes." Karasuma replied.

"I'm sure there are some talented upperclassmen as well." Kaede kept questioning.

"Most of them are too old. It's too late for them already. Their potential has been wasted, and that is exactly why I suggested starting one of these classes."

"What's the difference from normal classes?" Kaede was starting to get interested.

"You get access to more and rarer resources, have priority when it comes to training grounds, you will have me as your personal teacher with hunting and social classes outside of the school to gain experience in the real world, you will also get special privileges such as leaving the academy at any time and so on.", Karasuma explained.

"… Isn't this a bit too much?" Kaede was surprised.

"I only plan to pick one student out of each element, so the class will only have 4 students. With only 4 then the school can handle these costs." Karasuma answered seriously, "so? What's your answer, Kayano-san?"

"I'm honored for the invitation, Karasuma-sensei.", Kaede easily decided, it was a no-brainer, "I'll be under your care."

"Likewise Miss Kayano, classes will start at 8 tomorrow. We'll meet in front of the school gate." Karasuma nodded and disappeared from his spot.

"Ehhh? Leaving the academy already?" Kaede was surprised yet again, but she was thrilled to bits by the sudden change! She was already getting sick of her normal school life. This might be the change that she needed.

* * *

"Jo Nagisa!" Karma waves at Nagisa who just came back from his training while packing something into a bag.

"Hey, are you going somewhere?" Nagisa wondered as he walked towards Karma.

"Yeah, we're going into the forest for some hunting practice," Karma answered nonchalantly.

"Hunting practice? We do something like that in school?" Nagisa was surprised.

"Not in normal classes no, I told you that there are things that only a few students have to do, like my staff, remember?", Karma reminded Nagisa but stopped as if he suddenly thought of something, "Hey you wanna come with me tomorrow?", Karma asked all of a sudden with a grin on his face.

"Huh? I have classes, and didn't you say that only a few are allowed to do that?" Nagisa was confused.

"Sure did, I was thinking of recommending you into the class.", Karma nodded, "As for classes… you can just skip? You know that we're not obliged to be there, right?"

"What kind of class is it?" Nagisa wondered.

"Can't tell you that, but there are a lot of benefits if you get accepted. I'm not sure if you'll be accepted or if you'll be allowed to tag along, but I'm certain that you'll pique our teacher's interest." Karma replied, "I'd much prefer to have you in our class than someone else."

"When you say benefits, is the sword you have one of them?" the information Karma leaked was quickly sorted and digested by Nagisa.

"You could say that." Karma confirmed, "So, what do you say?".

"… Sure, I'll give it a try." Nagisa decided and shrugged.

"Nice, we'll have to be at the school gate at 7:30 tomorrow, so don't oversleep." Karma told him while heading back to his own room, "and just in case, pack some food and equipment."

"Got it.", Nagisa nodded while still deep in his thoughts. The staff, which was a melee weapon at the same time, that Karma used, was something that really intrigued Nagisa, if possible, he would love to get his hands on one as well, but it was almost impossible for him on his own. To craft such a weapon, one would need an extremely pure mana crystal and ores that allow mana to flow through and are sturdy enough to be used in close combat.

Nagisa simply didn't have the money, skill, and connections to get the materials and craft such a weapon on his own.

Deciding that he had nothing else to do for the day, Nagisa lazily went back into his room and went into his bathroom. There was a possibility that he might join Karma's mysterious class for hunting practice tomorrow, so Nagisa was debating if he should bring his dagger along with him.

After grabbing it out of the bag where he stored all his stuff for his "night job", Nagisa played around with it for a bit and decided against it. The jet-black dagger would stand out too much and it wouldn't fit Nagisa's mage image… but getting a good staff was too expensive for Nagisa while settling for a poorly made one would be plain stupid.

That's why for Nagisa, just the custom made weapon alone would be enough of a reason for him to join that class Karma was talking about.

* * *

The next day, Nagisa was in his bathroom and brushing his teeth still half-asleep. The clock in his room read 6:15 and it was still completely dark outside.

After quickly taking a shower and slipping into his uniform, Nagisa took his bag in which he had packed some bread and an extra set of clothes and left his room.

When he was downstairs, Karma was already waiting for him at the gate. Unlike Nagisa, Karma had a huge bag and his huge broadsword on his back. He was also wearing some light leather armor made from some magical beast unknown to Nagisa instead of his uniform.

"Ehh… you're wearing your uniform?" Karma questioned Nagisa's decision.

"These are the sturdiest clothes I have." Nagisa shrugged awkwardly, aside of the set of clothes that Kagero had gifted him and his assassin gear, the uniform was indeed the sturdiest wears Nagisa possessed. His assassin gear was clearly out of question, appearing in a tight full body suit with a mask wouldn't be suspicious at all. And while the set Kagero had gifted him could compare to an actual set of armor when it came to protection, it was a lot harder to maintain.

For example, if a magical beast would land a hit on Karma, it would at least leave a scratch on his leather armor. However, that would not stop Karma from continue wearing and using his armor. Even now, Nagisa could clearly see some claw marks and mud on it.

Nagisa's blazer on the other hand clearly was not designed for combat even if its protection abilities are possibly superior to Karma's leather armor. It would be such a shame to have a claw mark on such a fine piece of fabric. Moreover, the option to repair it after each use would simply cost too much.

All these matters aside, just the fact that it was a gift from Kagero was enough of a reason for Nagisa to reject wearing it in combat.

As for the school uniform, they may not be as protective as a set of armor, but still miles better than clothes that normal people wear. Not only did Nagisa have 3 sets of them, but the school also provided its student with new ones if they outgrew or damaged them.

So for Nagisa, it was the natural choice to use his uniforms as his combat gear. But for Karma, Nagisa's action was really strange, even though the dawn academy was a measure to build up a friendly relationship between the human and the dragon race, only students with a background were accepted. So a poor student like Nagisa had never existed before.

"Well, whatever. C'mon we gotta hurry up." Karma decided to just shrug it off and urged Nagisa.

"Yeah yeah, coming." Nagisa nodded and walked out of the gate with Karma.

When Karma and Nagisa arrived at the school gate, Karasuma was already there. Realizing that Karma had brought a person with him, Karasuma quickly shot a glance at Nagisa and frowned a little bit. He still remembered Nagisa from their encounter the other day, his first impression of Nagisa was a boy with great mental strength, decent potential but wasted a lot of it with his class change.

Karasuma roughly remembered Nagisa mentioning that he was a second-grade mage student. So even though Karasuma was very impressed by Nagisa's ability to remain calm while being pressured by him, the thought of recruiting Nagisa into his elite class did not cross his mind. Compared to Karma who was 13 and a stage 4 level 5 mage and Kaede who was going to get 13 in a month and a stage 4 level 1 mage, Nagisa was lacking a lot.

However, the fact that Karma was bringing Nagisa with him, made Karasuma decide to reevaluate Nagisa.

Karma had been the one and only student in Karasuma's class for more than 2 years now. Being the only member, Karasuma had also told Karma to keep looking for students with potential and allowed him to bring them along for testing. But over the years, Karma had never even mentioned a single person who had caught his interest, let along bringing someone along.

Karma was known for looking down upon other students, especially the so-called geniuses among them. To him, these so-called geniuses were nothing but a joke. They might have decent potential, but due to their background, they were all raised and taught in an environment where they had to work for nothing, they got everything they needed and wanted just by opening their mouths.

Karma was acknowledged as a genius as well and since he was the nephew of the principal, most students in the academy had put him in the same group as the people he despised. What other students didn't know was that all he got from his parents was his talent. Ever since he could remember, the times that he saw his parents could be counted with the fingers on his two hands.

He was raised by his uncle, but being the revolting kid he was, he had never asked him for any favor or recourses when it came to training. All the requests he actually made were either for pranks or just for random purposes that would give the principal a major headache.

So seeing Karma finally bringing someone along had more weight for Karasuma than Karma had initially thought.

"Yo, Karasuma!" Karma greeted Karasuma casually, "I brought you a new student." He straight up said without even asking Karasuma for his opinion.

"Morning Akabane-san, I didn't expect to ever see you bring someone along." Karasuma admitted bluntly, "Also good morning… Shiota-san I believe, we meet again."

"Good morning vice principal Karasuma." Nagisa nodded politely, "I suppose we do." Nagisa scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

"I was going to look for you anyway, I still needed to talk to you because of the compensation for that accident." Karasuma told Nagisa seriously, "As long as it's not too unreasonable, you can ask for anything. Having someone attempt to take your life inside the academy is a huge mistake on our side after all."

"Anything?" Nagisa eyes widened a little before his brain rapidly started to go through the options he had, "Ehh… can I request to join your class then, vice principal Karasuma?" Nagisa asked carefully. What he needed drastically right now were training resources and a new weapon, but both of these are not acquirable without a massive amount of money. If what Karma had told him were true, simply being a member of this class would solve both of these problems for him as long as he remained a student of this academy.

"You want to that as your compensation?" Karasuma frowned hearing these words, ironically, if Nagisa had asked for the academy to supply him with training resources and a new weapon, Karasuma would've agreed right on the spot without thinking twice. However, joining his class was a completely other matter for Karasuma. His objective was to raise a class of 4 unparalleled geniuses from each dragon tribe to take part in an interschool tournament that was a year later.

While Nagisa's mental was quite a bit above Karasuma's bottom line, his mana level was just a bit below his bottom line. Of course, that alone was not enough for Karasuma to determine if the student was qualified enough for his class. What Karasuma also put a lot of value in was the student's personality or even nature. There was no point in raising a student that might turn his back on the academy once someone offers him a better offer, no matter how talented that student might be.

"I can accept you on the spot, but I can put you in my list of candidates for further evaluation." Karasuma decided after giving it some thought, "Do you have anything else you want?"

"C'mon Karasuma, just accept Nagisa, I can vouch for him, I promise you won't be disappointed." Karma shrugged casually and grinned. He didn't know that the academy owed Nagisa such a huge favor. If he was only bringing Nagisa to try his luck before, he now was sure that Nagisa had a 50% chance to get into this class.

"It's fine Karma, and ehh, I can't think of anything right now vice principal Karasuma," Nagisa said. He was going to ask for resources and a new weapon if it didn't work, but since he had a chance of joining Karasuma's class, he would wait until the decision if he would join the class was made.

"Understood." Karasuma nodded, "Normally, I would've taken you with us for hunting practice since Akabane-san brought you, but I'm afraid I can't do that today." Karasuma said to Nagisa but was looking towards Karma.

"Huh? Why is that?" Karma asked with a dissatisfied expression.

"We already have a new student coming along with us today. You've been hunting alone on these trips until now. Building up some coordination with one new member is already a lot of work. Bringing in two new members would only result in absolute chaos. If I have to interfere with every single encounter, this entire trip would be pointless." Karasuma explained.

"A new student?" Karma frowned, "Like official student?" the way Karasuma said that was different than when he had a member to come along for testing.

"Yes, our official second member." Karasuma nodded, "I've been observing her since she joined the academy and officially invited her after she broke through the third stage yesterday."

"A stage 4… age? Mage or combatant? What element?" Karma's frown slowly mellowed. Karasuma's standards were just as if not higher than Karma's. If he said that he has observed that new student for a long time, then she must be quite special.

"I think she's turning 13 soon, you'll hear the rest from herself." Karasuma nodded approvingly at Karma's reaction, "Excuse me Shiota-san, but I'll have to ask you to participate in your normal classes for today. Starting tomorrow you can come to our training sessions with Akabane-san."

"I understand, I'll be under your care then, Karasuma-sensei." Nagisa nodded understandingly, "I'll be taking my leave then, see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow." Karasuma nodded. Nagisa's behavior and attitude left him with a good first impression.

"Our new member is going to be here anytime now, get ready to leave Akabane-san." Karasuma reminded Karma after Nagisa had already left for his morning classes.

A few minutes later, a girl in a clad in some light leather armor, a small staff, dagger, and a decent sized backpack appeared at the end of the road with the sun that was just starting to rise.

 **New chapter :S again it took a lot longer than I had expected, but my internship is taking all of my time and effort =.= at least I didn't think that they'd send an intern on business trips all over Europe. Not that I mind, of course, it's a great experience but naturally that results in me not being able to write at all since I don't even have access to my own computer with the chapter.**

 **But yeah :D that's enough about me, how have you guys been? Hope you're not too disappointed with the lack of updates for the last entire year actually. But I promise I've been trying my best :S It was a lot harder to write it since I had to reread the older chapters to check on some smaller details since I've forgotten quite a few of them over the time.**

 **Well, all things said I hope you enjoyed the chapter, if you find any bugs when it comes to some details please let me know :D also don't hold back in telling me what you think about the chapters in the reviews and I'll see you in the next chapter ;) (soonish I hope? :3)**


	18. Chapter 17

"This is Akabane-san. He's been the only student of this class up till now." Karasuma introduced him to Kaede while they were walking on a tiny road outside of the city.

"I know, principal Akabane's nephew." Kaede nodded and looked towards Karma, "Nice to meet you Akabane-san, I'm Kayano Kaede."

"Ah, the wind tribe prodigy?" Karma suddenly remembered, "I'm surprised they let you join the academy instead of locking you up in the tribe." Karma wondered. It was rather common for the tribes to restrain the few offspring with great potential until they're strong enough to hold their own. Karma was a special case since the principal of the school he was in was his uncle.

"…Things happened." Kaede frowned slightly seeing Karma prying into her past, "I haven't been back for almost 3 years now."

"You ran away?" that response finally piqued Karma's interest, just as with Nagisa, Karma only started to befriend him after catching him sneaking out of the academy at night. This way of thinking might be a little twisted, but in Karma's eyes, people that have their entire life planned out for them and simply have to follow the script are not worth anything. They might have a head start, but their achievement in the future was limited. Of course, there were exceptions, but most of the times people that are raised in that manner will never surpass their elder generations.

"It's complicated." Kaede just said and shook her head.

"Well, anyways, welcome to the team Kayano-chan." Karma shrugged after realizing that Kaede was getting uncomfortable and said with a smirk on his face.

"…Thank you." Kaede answered with another frown. She hated dealing with people like Karma, people are uncomfortably friendly right from the beginning, but you could sense that there were other intentions behind their words… and she wasn't exactly liking the way he was calling her.

 _\- The complete opposite from Hiru… -_

Was what Kaede thought when she got a grip of Karma's personality. While Hiru seemed like an asshole and unfriendly at first, once you get to know him better you could see that he was an earnest and nice person… well as earnest and nice as an assassin could get.

However, with Karma, Kaede could sense that even if she somehow managed to get along with him in the future, she will always be wary of him even if she trusted him. He seemed like the kind of person that you could completely trust when it came to really important things but would do everything in his power to mess things up for you when the consequences of failure are neglectable.

"So Kayano-chan, have you been hunting before?" Karma decided that he has pried enough and asked Kaede.

"Not really, no." Kaede was relieved that Karma finally changed the topic, "Is there something I must especially pay attention to?"

"Never let your guard down, magical beasts are not like normal animals. Their intelligence is in no way inferior to us humans, so you have to be wary of them playing dead and going for the kill when you put down your guard.

Always go for the kill, you don't have the leisure to feel sorry for them. Even though I said that their intelligence in on par with a human, they are still beasts, the thirst for blood is still in their nature. If you get intimidated or hold back, you're already one step closer to being dead.

Whether in or out of combat, always pay attention to your surroundings. We're going into the mountains, it's their territory. Never expect a fight to be a fair one on one, already be ready to be ambushed.

Survival is your top priority, do everything you have to do to survive, whether it comes to the choice of food, beverage or resting places. Never start a fire when camping, it only draws in unwanted attention, if you want your meat cooked ask Akabane-san, he's a fire mage and can cook the meat by heating it from the inside. But take into consideration that you're using up his mana supply by doing that, consider the position you're currently in.

Now to the most important one, do NOT abandon each other. Once we enter the mountains, I will not be with you two. And unless your guys are going to die or are attacked by a beast way above your level, I will not interfere. What I want to build is a team, I don't care what you guys think of each other outside of the mountain, but when you are in there I want you to completely trust each other.

Everything clear?" Karasuma suddenly stepped into the conversation and held a lecture.

"… I don't have a problem with the points above, but the last point isn't that easy to do." Kaede frowned after hearing the last point. She had just met Karma less than an hour ago. She was pretty sure that she wouldn't even be able to do everything Karasuma had listed if the person she was teamed up with was Yoruhiru, who she was already acknowledged as her partner.

She did trust him, but only to the point when his own life wasn't in danger because if she would ask herself that is where she would abandon Yoruhiru currently. She would do everything to save him as long as her life is not threatened. Naturally, this might change with the time they work as partners, but she did not expect more from her partner than she expected herself to do for him.

There was only one person in this world that she would entrust her life with and sacrifice her life for, but that person was already gone.

Now back to Karma, to be absolutely honest, currently Kaede would love to completely avoid getting involved with Karma. She really didn't like the feeling of him trying to see through her, so in simpler words, she was extremely wary of Karma. With this feeling towards him, she really doubted that she would even be able to somehow cooperate with him at all.

"Kayano-chan is right… I don't think I'll be able to do that." Karma also frowned and admitted very bluntly. This surprised Kaede a little, most people would try to somehow talk around it or make promises they know they can't keep.

"Naturally I don't expect you two to be able to do that right on the spot, but I would appreciate you two trying to achieve that. Remember that I am aiming for a group of four. If we can't even manage to get two people to work perfectly together, we might just give up right now." Karasuma answered calmly.

"…Fine." Karma sighed and shook his head a little, but when he looked back up, the lax and mischievous look on his face was completely gone. Replacing it was a serious and focused expression that seemed kind of out of place on him, "I'll be counting on you then, Kayano-chan."

"Likewise." Kaede was taken aback for a second but managed recovered quickly and answered in a serious tone.

"Good, now give me your backpacks and weapons." Karasuma nodded and demanded.

"Huh? Ehh sure?" Karma raised an eyebrow but still did as Karasuma said.

"Okay?" Kaede frowned out of confusion but still followed Karma's lead.

"Good." Karasuma nodded after taking over the bags and weapons that were handed to him, "we're already deep in the mountain's outer ring, remember to stay away from the center, now let the practice begin." Karasuma announced and disappeared with both their bags and weapons.

"…Huh?" Kaede blinked a few times while staring at the spot Karasuma was just standing. "Did he just…"

"Urgh… fuck me." Karma groaned while rolling his eyes, "Really?! Right on the first trip?" Karma complained loudly, he was certain that Karasuma was still somewhere where he could see and hear them.

"Mind explaining what is going on?" Kaede got a bit impatient hearing Karma just complaining and not knowing what was going on at all herself.

"Karasuma does that from time to time, but I can't predict when, since he always tells me to prepare and pack my bag." Karma sighed and said.

"So, a survival trip without any preparation?" Kaede started to understand, "But if he already did that in the past why did you give him your bag?" Kaede questioned.

"You think not giving it to him now would change anything?" Karma rolled his eyes, "He will take them no matter what. Sometimes he suggests a break and disappears with our equipment during it without me even noticing. Sometimes he asks me to check if I have brought something with me and just grabs my bag and disappears when I'm searching, and the one time I resisted no matter what he did, he just took it by force."

"…"

"But this is the first time he's taken all the weapons as well." Karma sighed again.

"Probably because this time we are two people instead of just one," Kaede suggested after hearing Karma's explanation.

"You're taking this rather well, have to say I'm surprised." Karma finally noticed that Kaede wasn't panicking at all, actually, she was terrifyingly calm. Karma remembered when Karasuma did that to him the first time, he completely lost it and was swearing at Karasuma for the first 10 minutes before accepting his fate and starting to prepare, well, but he was also only 10 back then.

"Hmm… kind of used to it." a bitter smile appeared on Kaede's face that she quickly shook off. "So, I guess our task is to get out of the mountains in one piece?" Kaede took a deep breath and finally asked.

"Pretty much, and he always left me at a different starting point every single time." Karma shrugged and confirmed Kaede's suspicion, "You can also forget taking the same way back since I can guarantee you that the road is packed with beasts."

"…Luring powder? Seriously?" Kaede let out a long sigh. Not that she was nervous or afraid, but all of this was going to be a major annoyance.

"Well, I thought you would freak out and lose it, but you're more capable than I gave you credit for, that's a huge relieve actually." Karma was slowly starting to acknowledge Kaede, or at least her abilities.

"Thanks?" Kaede didn't really care about Karma's opinion of her but him willing to cooperate was a good start nonetheless. "So, I've never been in these mountains before, and judging from your stories you've been here quite often so I'll leave the pathing to you?" Kaede suggested.

"Yeah, that makes sense." Karma nodded in agreement, "But before we start to move, we need to get some equipment, a temporary weapon and some water are a must. Food is good but optional. We won't die not eating for a day."

"That might be true, but I would still keep an eye out for some easily portable foods. We can't predict how much energy we will consume for this trip. An unexpected encounter with a beast when you're completely famished and exhausted could be fatal." Kaede noted while looking around.

"True… also do remind me when I misjudge the amount of equipment we need, I'm used to doing it alone, so I might do some things out of habit." Karma agreed.

"Are you a mage or a combatant?" Kaede asked while some wind blades were shooting out of her stretched-out hand.

"A mage, why?" Karma looked at her with interest, if he didn't know better he would've thought that Kaede was an idiot and simply wasting mana but judging from everything that happened till now he could hardly imagine her doing something this pointless.

"Wait, a mage?" the barrage of wind blades that were flying out of her palm had stopped, "That's bad… I thought you were a combatant when I saw your sword. We can't both use ranged attacks, so someone will have to be vanguard while the other one assists from the backline." Kaede started, she was looking into some two-man-squad formations ever since she formed her partnership with Hiru to prepare, but since Hiru was a melee combatant, all she did was to look into some melee and ranged combinations, "Why do you have a broadsword as your weapon then?" Kaede asked confused.

"Karasuma didn't fill you in yet?" Karma asked surprised, "Mages in this class have to choose to train themselves in some sort of physical weapon. According to Karasuma, there are situations where magic can be completely neglected, like a barrier or something. So, to prevent us from being completely defenseless, Karasuma has set the rule that the mages under him have to at least achieve a combat power equivalent to a stage two 1-star combatant without the support of their mana before they graduate." Karma explained, "So right now, even if I don't have a single drop of aura, I am confident that I can fight with a stage three 2-star combatant in close combat with my broadsword and applying some spells to my sword and body. Without my mana, I can currently match a stage one 2-star combatant until I run out of stamina while he can keep supporting himself with his aura."

"… A physical weapon huh, I think I have an idea." Kaede nodded after hearing Karma's explanation while starting to shoot out wind blades again. Achieving the battle strength of a novice combatant was possible even without the existence of aura. Just theoretically speaking, the limit of a human body was equivalent to the strength of a stage tow 2-star combatant. The decedents of the dragon tribes, however, could theoretically reach the strength of a stage four 1-star combatant just with their body alone. Of course, it was all in theory, nobody has actually managed to push their body that far yet.

"Then why don't you play vanguard?" Kaede suggested after putting her arm that was casting the spells back down.

"Well, I would, but I still need a weapon." Karma shrugged.

"Good, then we can get going. Let's find a drinkable water source first." Kaede nodded, ignored Karma's retort and started walking in the direction she was shooting her wind blades in.

"…" Karma simply raised his brows but decided to follow her. When they arrived at the spot, Karma couldn't help but to let out a whistle looking at what Kaede had done while talking to him. In front of him was a large blade made out of a huge rock that used to be here, "Nice control."

"I made the blade according to your height and your actual sword, hope the size is alright." Kaede turned and said to Karma.

"The size is good, just need to track down a beast to wrap the handle with some sort of leather." Karma said after picking the blade up and swinging it a few times, "It's kinda hard to keep my grip with the weight of this thing and nothing wrapped around it. Actually, how did you know that there was a rock here." Karma questioned after fastening the stone blade on his back where his own sword was originally at.

"I just tried out my new **Unique Skill** , it lets me sense my surroundings by sending wind strokes in all directions, kinda like how bats do it with soundwaves," Kaede explained.

"Do you want to take over the pathing part then?" Karma suggested but Kaede instantly shook her head.

"I need to increase my mana output to expand the field to an effective range and keeping it up costs an insane amount of mana. I think it's better if you do the general pathing and I can use the max range to check every now and then." Kaede suggested.

"Too bad." Karma said but didn't seem disappointed at all, "It's strange, but somehow you give me similar vibes as my roommate."

"That so?" Kaede asked but was clearly faking her interest.

"Well, you'll meet him eventually, I think you'll like him." Karma shrugged with a smirk on his face.

"Somehow I highly doubt that…" Kaede rolled her eyes, "Can we focus now? I'm trying to concentrate." She was trying to hint that she had no interest in keeping this conversation going as polite as possible up till now, but somehow Karma simply saw that as an invitation to keep talking.

"Aww, don't be so cold Kayano-chan, we're supposed to be classmates now." Karma's smirk only got wider hearing Kaede's response.

"…" Kaede instantly increased the speed of her walking to gain some distance between her and Karma.

"Weird… she gives off the same vibes as Nagisa." Karma frowned and muttered to himself after Kaede was an already quite a distance ahead of him. He had the same vibes coming from Nagisa, he could tell that the two of them are definitely not bad people, but there is just this faint sense of danger coming from both of them.

 **Well, here's another chapter :D I finally have some free time now and nothing to do, so there you go. Nothing much to say here, just Kaede's first encounter with Karma :D. It felt a bit hard since there aren't many scenes of Kaede and Karma interacting with each other in the anime or manga, and they also cleverly skipped the stage where they still didn't know each other that well by simply having Nagisa, who knew had a good relationship with both of them, join them in their conversation.**

 **If I'm not too wrong with my pacing (which I usually am…), I think we'll see a new character in the next 1 or 2 chapters.**

 **So, how did you like this chapter? Please tell me what you think about it in the reviews. Have a good day, hope you enjoyed the chapter and I'll see you in the next one! ;)**


	19. Chapter 18

Kaede and Karma were beyond frustrated. The sun was already starting to go down, but they were nowhere close to any exit of the mountains. Instead, both of them were completed drained, had some rather serious injuries and have already failed the test since Karasuma had to interfere.

Things started out really smoothly. They quickly found a clean water source and Kaede made them some water bottles out of wood with her wind magic. The pathing was going well too with Karma doing the general direction and Kaede fine-tuning in between with her **Unique Skill**.

However, all the coordination had collapsed when they ran into their first enemy. Their synergy was absolutely terrible! By now, there were already several cut marks on Karma's armor that were clearly not from any claws or fangs while Kaede had several burn marks on hers.

If Karasuma hadn't been watching them the entire time, he would probably think that they've turned on each other during the training, but nothing of that sort had happened. They were simply so out of sync that they somehow managed to disrupt or get hit by each other's attacks.

Karasuma was holding the bridge of his nose while wearing a deep frown on his face. Both Kaede and Karma had enormous potential, actually, Karasuma had never seen anyone with that much talent in his entire life before.

As of now, Karasuma would actually prefer if they had turned on each other. Because if it was only a personal grudge, it could still be worked out. But these two were actually trying their hardest to cooperate with each other, but the results just showed that these two were so incredibly incompatible that Karasuma could only come to one conclusion to solve this issue… one of them would have to leave the team.

But that was also something Karasuma really didn't want to do. No matter whom he had to kick from the team, it would be such a huge loss for him. He was certain that there was no way he could find a replacement for either of them in his entire lifetime.

Karasuma was getting a major headache from just watching these two. Kaede and Karma just kept running into unknown and rare beasts. It was as if God just wanted to mess with them today. According to Karasuma's calculation, Karma and Kaede should've been out of the mountains more than an hour ago.

The distance to the exit Karasuma had left them in, was the equivalent to the times when Karma was alone. If Karma was able to do it on his own, they should've been able to make it out easily, no matter how bad their coordination was.

But that was not how it went. After having their first few encounters and accepting the fact that them working together was actually less efficient than going in solo, Karma and Kaede had decided to take turns fighting against beasts that they run into.

For them this was the most efficient way since teaming up was ironically more exhausting then soloing. What this also did was to give one person some time to rest while it was the others turn to fight.

Normally this plan would've worked just fine considering that Karma used to do this on his own in the past. But they just had such bad luck today. On their fourth encounter, they had run into a rare type of tier 4 beast that was known as the Dracula-wolf. The wolf-like creature was covered in dark red fur, had fangs of a bat, and large bat wings on its back. It was a lot faster than your typical tier 4 wolf type beast and had the ability to fly.

These types of beasts usually come into existence when a pregnant high tier wolf beast hunted down and devoured the magic core of a high tier bat beast that caused her child to mutate in her belly. But since the chance of a mutation happening was extremely low, it was incredibly hard to run into one of these.

While Karma and Kaede were slightly surprised when they saw it, they didn't think much about it and after a really fast-paced fight, Kaede managed to land a fatal hit on the wolf. But just before the hit landed, the Dracula-wolf let out a deafening howl before falling to the ground.

That was when things started to go south. Dracula-wolves lived in packs, just like any other wolf type beasts. But Kaede and Karma forgot one little detail… they could fly.

From this point on, Kaede and Karma hadn't been doing anything else but escaping from the Dracula-wolf pack's pursuit. Kaede had also tried to use her third **Unique Skill,** grab Karma, and escape from the air, but she quickly found out that it was a horrible idea.

The sky was much more dangerous than the ground where they had the cover of the trees. The border of high and low tier between the center and the outer ring did not apply to bird monsters! After taking flight for less than a minute, Kaede and Karma suddenly realized that the wolves had stopped chasing them.

Just a few seconds later, they were covered by a large shadow and when they raised their heads to check, both of them could see their lives fading in front of their eyes. There was a huge bird with dark brown feathers diving straight towards them! With its wings completely spread, the bird was at least 10 meters wide and the sharp fangs inside its beak made Kaede and Karma shudder.

That was when Karasuma had to interfere. The bird was a tier 7 beast known for its size and enormous aggression because of its unsatisfiable appetite. While Karasuma was confident to take on this bird on his own, he could not risk attracting even more high tier beasts with Karma and Kaede still around.

So after crashing into the bird to stop its dive, that created a shockwave, which sent Karma and Kaede straight back to the ground, Karasuma had then grabbed both of the kids and started to run by foot. The large size of the bird made sure that it couldn't chase them into the woods and with Karasuma's speed and the cover of the treetops, it didn't take long until the bird had lost track on Karasuma.

"It was partly my mistake." Karasuma sighed and admitted, "I didn't expect Kayano-san to have a **Unique Skill** that grants her the ability of flight, so I didn't warn you about it." Karasuma explained.

No matter mages or combatants, they first gain their ability to fly when they reach the fifth stage. It was the stage where the gas-like energy of aura or mana started to be compressed and starts to liquify. Only then, were mages and combatant able to form aura or mana wings on their backs that would support them to gain the ability to fly.

Even then, combatants and mages rarely use this ability since this skill consumed a ridiculous amount of energy. The pool of a low-level stage 5 would only support the wings for less than 10 minutes.

"When in the territory of beasts, the ranking of danger usually goes like this, water, sky, ground." Karasuma explained, "The skies in these mountains are even dangerous for me to explore if I'm not careful."

Kaede and Karma gulped hearing Karasuma's words. If Karasuma said that it was dangerous for him, what they did was not far from what people would call suicide.

"Now to how you did… I already know what Akabane-san is capable of, so I'll skip the basics for him." Karasuma started, "Kayano-san, great mental stability. I was surprised that you were able to stay this calm and come up with reasonable and effective ideas on top of Akabane-san's usual attempt. Your approach to start this test was pretty much perfect, all you lack is some experience in that regard. You pass this part of the test."

"Thank you, Sensei." Kaede nodded and said sincerely.

"Akabane-san, initially this was supposed to be a test to see how well you are able to support an inexperienced teammate, but Kayano-san's performance made this test impossible, so you won't get a rating for this." Karasuma turned to Karma.

"Yes, sir." Karma just shrugged while taking a sip of water.

"And now to the important part… your teamwork." Karasuma couldn't help himself and let out a long sigh while both Karma and Kaede couldn't help but to grimace hearing Karasuma bringing that up, "Frankly I've never seen anything like that." Karasuma said while holding his forehead, "I didn't even think something like this was possible."

"I can work just fine with other people…" Kaede couldn't help but to mutter, she was doing just fine working together with Hiru even if it was their first time.

"Oh wow, so it's my fault now? That's fresh coming from someone who doesn't have a single friend in the entire academy." Karma rolled his eyes and said bluntly, even if he didn't dislike Kaede's personality, there was still a lot of bottled up frustration after getting hit by her attacks numerous of times, let alone getting hunted by a horde of flying puppies. "Have you ever tried to cooperate with someone before? "

"And what makes you any different?! You think I don't know that the entire academy tries to avoid you as if you're some kind of disease?" Kaede grit her teeth and glared at Karma, what Karma said was not unreasonable, this was the image she was giving off in the academy, someone who doesn't want to work with anyone, even the teachers. She really wanted to retort, but her work at the dusk was something she definitely couldn't bring up.

"Is that how…"

"That's enough!" Karasuma facepalmed seeing his only two students like this, he had miscalculated once again. After seeing that both of them had started on not the best, but quite mature and collective note, Karasuma had decided to let them work things out on their own. But he had forgotten that no matter how mature they were, they were still 12 and 13-year-old kids. And kids in that age start holding grudges very easily, and once they do, they become extremely stubborn.

"Let's get out of here… we'll discuss the rest when we find a place where we can stay the night and eat." Karasuma decided.

"Ehmm that won't work Sensei…" Kaede's expression quickly changed when she heard Karasuma, she was supposed to meet up with Hiru tonight! "I need to get back to the academy today Sensei."

"Hmm? What's the matter, can't you postpone it?" Karasuma frowned and asked her.

"I'm afraid not." Kaede was slightly nervous, "I wouldn't have come if you didn't say that we would make it back today." Kaede said with determination.

"That was the plan, but you two are in no condition to travel back right now," Karasuma said. "The risk is too high."

"It's fine! I can still move just fine!" Kaede jumped back up on her feet but grimaced when she felt her entire body ache. "And you're there as well Sensei! It's not even that far away."

"I'm afraid this is not possible Kayano-san." Karasuma shook his head. "This test was meant to build a connection in this team, there won't be a point if we end it prematurely."

"If that's the case I will leave on my own." Kaede didn't back down, it wasn't easy finding a partner that fit her grandfather's conditions, she was not going to let this partnership end because of this. If she was going to let Hiru hanging right on their first meet up, she was 80% sure that the partnership was going to end right there.

"I can't let you do something like this as your teacher, Kayano-san" Karasuma insisted.

"Then I'll quit your class!" Kaede blurted out without hesitation, "I have to get back today, vice principal Karasuma!" she purposely changed the way she addressed Karasuma to show him that she was not joking. Yes, she did want her school life to become more interesting, but she was not going to sacrifice her main goal of shutting down the entire slave market for that. And for her to be allowed to take any mission above A rank, she needed a partner! And Hiru was her only choice!

"If you do that, I'm afraid that I will have to retrain you Kayano-san, even as vice principal I can't let one of our students do something this reckless." Karasuma was starting to get irritated and subconsciously started to apply pressure onto Kaede with his aura.

"I will quit the academy if you do that." Kaede, who felt the sudden weight coming down on her, could feel how her anger was slowly boiling up. "And don't even think of going to the wind tribe for this, they don't have a say in this." Kaede glared right back at Karasuma not giving in to the intimidation.

"Jo Karasuma quit the bs." Karma finally spoke seeing that this was starting to get out of hand. "I don't know what your problem is, but if that's the kind of teacher you are going to be I'm leaving this class as well."

"This is a different matter Akabane-san, I need a reason why she thinks she needs to make her team travel while being completely exhausted." Karasuma shook his head and stared back at Kaede.

"Team? Don't you think it's a bit hypocritic considering that you aren't even sure if you want to keep me in the team yet, vice principle Karasuma?" a rather cold smile appeared on Kaede's face, "Excuse me for my straightforwardness but I don't trust you, not one bit. You were playing with the thought of kicking me off the team after seeing the problems between me and Akabane-san, weren't you? So why are you expecting me to put this team of yours above everything else I care about, while you aren't even considering me as an official team member yet?"

"…" the entire pressure Karasuma had placed on Kaede suddenly vanished while Karasuma was taken aback for a short second. She was right, subconsciously Karasuma had assumed that since he had gone all the way to invite Kaede into this class, it was only natural that she should be able to make sacrifices for this team.

Without a doubt, Karasuma has been putting this team of his ahead of everything else, but he had also forgotten that it was the members what made this team possible. That is also why he had been this strict with the selection of the members.

Up until now, this team had only been him and Karma, who were both ready to make sacrifices to a certain degree for the existence of this team. But Karasuma had forgotten how long it took get Karma somewhat attached to this class of his, it was so long ago that he had subconsciously considered this a natural. There was no way he could ask the same of someone who hadn't even been a member of this team for more than a day.

"You are correct, Kayano-san." Karasuma bowed slightly, "It is true that I had subconsciously put the existence of this team above of you as its member, and therefore prioritized my own desires above my duty as a teacher. You have my apology." Karasuma said sincerely, "But I would still like to ask you to reconsider."

"… I'm sorry Sensei, but this is really important to me." Kaede looked at Karasuma expression for a while, let out a silent sigh and shook her head. She didn't say anything, but just by the way she called him, Karasuma knew that he was forgiven for his previous action.

"… Can you wait till we find a place to rest? I will then personally send you back as fast as I can." Karasuma let out a sigh, "You should know that both you and Akabane-san are not in the condition to travel."

"… That should be fine, I think." Kaede bit the bottom of her lips, that would mean that she'd be at least an hour late for their meeting and she wasn't sure if Hiru would wait this long for her.

"Thank you, Kayano-san." Karasuma nodded. If she had even declined this offer, he would really have to consider removing her from this party. Even if she was correct that she had no obligation to put this team as her top priority, Karasuma still didn't want his team members to be people that show zero consideration to people around them.

"Uhh, that was gutsy." Karma had an excited smirk on his face while he started to grin at Kaede, "It's been a while since I've seen someone being able to talk like this to Karasuma. I think I'm starting to like you more Kayano-chan." Karma said completely ignoring the fact that Karasuma was standing right next to them.

"Well, can't say the same from my side, but still, thank you for helping out." Kaede threw a quick glance at Karma and looked back at Karasuma as if she was urging him to finally get moving.

"… We'll have to work on your coordination tomorrow. Training will start at 10 o'clock tomorrow, Akabane-san and I should be back by then." Karasuma said while grabbing both Kaede and Karma and leaping into the air. Large dark brown energy wings started to form behind his back as soon as they were just above the tree lines. "If you need to travel fast in the mountains in the future, this is the safest way," Karasuma explained while the wings on his back made a powerful swing and sent the three of them dashing across the mountains.

"You get protection from the beasts on the ground using the treetops, while you can quickly retreat into the woods if you get attacked by a high tier bird monster." Karasuma explained, "Of course, this is all based on the assumption that you're strong or fast enough to only consider the high tier bird monsters a threat. Otherwise, you'll just get hunt down by a horde of low tier bird monsters or mutated beast from the ground like the Dracula-wolves you've encountered today."

This information was mainly directed to Kaede, since she would be able to use this method sooner than anyone else, but also as some sort of apology. Since Kaede already had her third **Unique Skill** that could grant her the power of flight, once she becomes a stage 5 mage, she could user her **Unique Skill** combined with her mana wings and heavily increase the flight speed and duration of a normal stage 5.

The lecture didn't last long though since with Karasuma's speed, it didn't take long till they've found a small inn they could rest in. After getting a room and leaving Karma there, Karasuma quickly grabbed Kaede and started to head towards the academy in the same manner as he had brought them out of the mountains.

 **Man, having the time to just sit at home with a cup of tea and some snacks while I can just let my mind run wild and type away, damn I've missed that feeling.**

 **In the last few months even when I found the time to write, my mind was still filled with all the bs from work like, "Oh crap I got this meeting tomorrow, do I have all my documents?", or, "Oof business trip tomorrow gotta pack my luggage." and so on.**

 **So yeah :/ to everyone who's still in school or in university, enjoy that part of your life. I know what my parents used to tell me, "Work hard now son, once you get your degree and start earning money, you can start enjoying your life."… If your parents are telling you anything like that =.= that's a 100% bullshit, you will never have as much freedom as you did in university or school, if you get a decent job, unless you make it all the way up in your company. And that doesn't just happen with a snap of a finger.**

 **Well, enough of me ranting :P, hope you all enjoyed the chapter, please tell me what you think about it in the reviews, have a great day and I'll see you in the next chapter! ;)**


	20. Chapter 19

Nagisa yawned as he was walking back to the mansion. Classes were incredibly boring to him. Not that the teachers were bad at explaining things, but Nagisa was already used to Kagero's, less talking more practicing, way of teaching.

Listening to someone talking for more than 8 hours was not something Nagisa enjoyed a lot. He felt unusually exhausted, and that meant a lot considering Nagisa had spent his last two years meditation instead of sleeping at night. Speaking of which, after enjoying finally sleeping in a bed for a few days, Nagisa was going to pick that habit of meditating back up again.

Sleeping in a bed was definitely nice, but for Nagisa, catching up to the others was more important. He already had a late start, so he would have to make up for it by working twice or even three times as harder than others do.

After grabbing a quick snack from the fridge, Nagisa went straight into his bathroom, grabbed his assassin gear, put it on, and fastened his dagger on his waist. He then activated his **Unique Skill**. But instead of changing his appearance into the identity that was now called Yoruhiru, Nagisa only cast an illusion on his outfit that made his pitch-black assassin gear appear as some casual clothes, while also changing his hair color and facial features to ones that wouldn't stand out as much. When he was done, the sun was already hanging low in the sky, which made the shadows a lot longer.

After quickly making sure that no one was watching his balcony, Nagisa took a deep breath and leaped right into the mansion's shadow that crept over the entire wall of the academy. Once he was inside the shadow, Nagisa slowly moved inside the shadow until he was on the other side of the wall, made sure that he was alone and emerged out of the shadow.

After making sure again that his illusions were still on, Nagisa started to take a casual stroll towards the dusk's secret base. To not attract too much attention, Nagisa was walking really slowly while also looking into a few shops from time to time.

By the time he had arrived in the suburbs, the sun had already gone down. Nagisa then took a turn into a small alleyway and by the time he came out, his appearance had already changed into the one of the young dusk member.

After pulling his mask up to cover his face, Nagisa quickly closed his eyes to concentrate and adjusted his mentality. By the time his eyes opened again, his eyes had already turned grey and cold like the ones of a longtime assassin.

After warming up and loosening his body for a bit, Nagisa didn't waste more time and sprinted towards the old well, checked his surroundings again and jumped into it. The entire entry system went on as usual and by the time Nagisa had entered, many people had already noticed his presence.

"Huh? What are doing here so soon again kiddo?" the crowd seemed really surprised. But it was understandable since Nagisa usually only appears once a month and that was already being generous.

"Not really a big surprise, bastard is looking for his little girlfriend," Crow yelled out loud while wearing a teasing smile on his face.

"You know that comment can get you killed if the higher-ups from the dusk hear this, old man?" Nagisa rolled his eyes while taking a seat next to Crow.

"Well, if they hear that I won't be the only one in trouble." Crow grinned while slapping Nagisa on his back, "So, how did it go?" Crow asked.

"How did what go?" Nagisa asked slightly confused.

"C'mon, you know what I mean." Crow had a dirty smile on his face, "Did you _conquer_ the princess?"

"Conquer?" Nagisa got even more confused, "What the hell are you talking about, old man?"

"Hey Crow, the hell is wrong with you!", "Yeah! Don't teach weird stuff to our little boy!", "Why don't you go _conquer_ an animal you swine!" the female members of the branch suddenly snapped at Crow's remark, some even started attacking him.

Nagisa was taken aback a little when a sudden brawl has broken out but the initial shock had turned back into even more confusion after a short second. A brawl inside this branch was nothing new to Nagisa, this happened quite often, to be honest. While the fights sometimes looked dangerous, no one has ever gotten hurt in these. It was more like a little entertainment for all the members who didn't have a mission and were just lazing around in the hideout.

"Hey Tusk, did the princess come to the branch when I wasn't here?" Nagisa shook his head a little and asked a huge bulky man who was not involved in the brawl after he had decided not to think about Crow's comment anymore.

"I TOLD YOU HE'S LOOKING FOR HER!" Nagisa held the bridge of his nose when Crow's voice echoed out of the mess in between all his painful yelps.

"No, she hasn't been here once. Why are you asking?" Tusk also let out a chuckle. Crow might be the head of this branch, but no one really treated him like one unless it really mattered.

"Hmm, nothing. I'll be around, take care." Nagisa nodded and shook his head right after before making his way towards the mission boards. "She's late…" Nagisa frowned slightly while he was scanning through the missions.

* * *

Akari was trying her best to move as fast as she could, but with every big movement she made, her muscles started to ache and pleaded her to stop and take a break. Even though her wounds were mostly healed, the mental and physical exhaustion could not be recovered by a spell alone. On top of that, she was late, very late.

In her original plan, she would be late for around an hour if she would leave as soon as Karasuma had brought her back. But after arriving, Karasuma had insisted for her to visit the infirmary first before he allowed her to leave. With all her injuries, the treatment alone took almost an hour.

It took her almost another 20 minutes to find a chance to get out of the academy. Even though she did have the authority to leave the academy whenever she wished to now, her exits and entries will still need to be recorded. While the exits were not a big deal, the entry times would definitely be highly suspicious if she came back 3 or 4 in the morning from time to time. It would be even worse if there were only records of her exiting and none of her coming back in.

Now she was on the streets and giving her best to walk as fast as possible while making sure not to catch too much attention, but her body just wouldn't work with her and forced her to slow down more and more. By the time she has arrived at the well, 40 more minutes have passed already.

She was more than 3 hours late… 3 entire hours. She couldn't say for sure, but if the positions were reversed she probably would not have waited this long.

With a quick flip, Akari disappeared into the well and ran into the hideout while going through the security as fast as she could. Naturally, she instantly caught everyone's attention with her barging into the room like this.

"H-Hiru… is he still here?" Akari grasped for air while asking the entire crowd.

"Hi-who?" the branch members were dumbfounded and asked, they have not heard of that codename yet.

"Ehmm, the boy I met the last time." Akari quickly realized what was going on and added, "We were supposed to meet up today."

"HA! See? See? What did I tell you!" Crow's excited voice reached Akari's ears, "I told you something was going on between them!"

"Fuck off Crow, where did the brat go anyway? I haven't seen him for a while now." Tusk laughed as he interrupted Crow and asked, "That little shit has a lot left to learn. Not to be present on their appointed time, tsk tsk tsk." Tusk said seriously.

That comment made Akari's face burn up a little, but I couldn't be seen with her mask blocking it, "Since when has he been here?" Akari asked.

"Hmm? I think he came here around 20:00. More than three and a half hours ago?" one of the female members said a bit unsurely.

 _\- He came half an hour early… -_

That only made Akari feel even worse, if Hiru was still here, by now there was no way he didn't notice her with all the commotion she was causing, "When did you see him last?"

"Huh? When we last saw him?" the crowd got loud again

"I think I saw him at the mission boards an hour ago."

"Wait, didn't he take a turn in the ring as well?"

"Oh yeah! Where he shoved his wooden dagger up Leo's ass because he couldn't break through his defense anywhere else." someone suddenly remembered and started laughing, "That little dipshit always has these absurd ideas."

"Hey shut it! I was just a bit careless!" a deep and annoyed voice rang through the hall, "Maaan, next time I won't hold back anymore, that kid needs a beating."

"You do that and I'm gonna beat the shit out of you Leo!" one of the female members called Panther threatened Leo.

"Oh c'mon, you girls can't keep babying him like this, that kiddo's improving way to fast, give it another year and he'll actually be able to beat us fair and square! You gotta let us bully him while we still can!" other members who had also been used by Yoruhiru as his training partners in the past joined the conversation and started complaining.

Seeing the entire branch treating Yoruhiru as if he was their younger brother put a sad smile on Kaede's face. This bunch of shady, underground assassins seemed more like a family than her actual family. It was so ironic that it hurt to think about it. She was also painfully aware that she would never be able to completely merge into this large family because of a simple reason. She was one of the candidates who would be the successor to the entire dusk organization.

It was always her heritage that pushed her away from everything she wanted… she had lost her family because she had inherited and even surpassed her grandfather's talent. She has never had the feeling of belong to some team or group because people only treated her as their superior, as their potential future leader. As for the other dusk princes and princesses, they only saw her as a huge nuisance that they would love to get rid of. Because she was too talented and too young. If things continued to develop like this, she was almost destined to be the next leader of the dusk, and her heritage only added on top of her talent.

"You're late…" a genuinely pissed off voice suddenly broke Akari out of her train of thought, the sound was a bit rusty, but she could hear that it belonged to a boy who was not a lot older than her.

"Hiru?" Akari turned around and asked in disbelieve, he was actually still here! She was almost 4 hours late and he was still here!

"Hey, at least you still came on the day of the appointment," Yoruhiru answered in a sarcastic tone while pointing at the clock on the wall that showed 23:53.

"I'm sorry, I…"

"Aye, kiddo you're being a cunt again!" Crow, who came out of nowhere, scolded Yoruhiru while giving him a slap on the back of his head.

"Hey! What the hell?!" Yoruhiru cried out loud.

"Kid this is not how you treat a lady," Crow said with a serious tone as if he was lecturing Yoruhiru.

"She came 4 hours too late!" Yoruhiru groaned, "What am I supposed to say, oh wow, hey princess, just in time, I've just arrived myself?! Why did you asked me to stay and wait anyway?!"

"Pff…hehehe." Akari couldn't help but to let out a chuckle seeing the interaction before her, "I'm sorry for being late, it wasn't on purpose."

"…You know that it's not very convincing when you're giggling as if you're having the time of your life after seeing me getting slapped in the back of my head because of you." Yoruhiru rolled his eyes, "Honestly, if Crow hadn't asked me, I would've left an hour ago."

"It's understandable, but I really am sorry..." Akari shook her head, took a deep breath and tried to sound as sincere as she could.

"Good, now that kiddo isn't being a cunt and awkward anymore, you two can hold a normal conversation now hmm?" Crow grinned and gave Akari a wink after tapping Yoruhiru on his shoulder a few times, "Don't be so unforgiving, you have a thing for reading people kiddo. Even I can see that she really is feeling bad for being late, give some people the benefit of doubt, eh?"

"Oh and princess, this kid never listens to me when I ask him to do something he doesn't want to do, so him still being here is definitely not just my doing." Crow turned around and said to Akari as if he suddenly remembered something as he was walking away while raising both his eyebrows a few times.

"…" Yoruhiru threw an annoyed glance at Crow but then turned his eyes towards Akari, "So, what's your excuse." Yoruhiru asked with a sigh, even though he only interacted with Akari for a few hours, he could tell that she wasn't the type to just break a promise for no reason. He was genuinely mad that she was more than 3 hours late, so he decided to act coldly to prevent this from becoming a habit. But of course, Crow had to come and ruin everything.

"I got attacked by a high tier bird monster." Akari grimaced and said.

"You know… just because I believe that you didn't come late on purpose doesn't mean you can just give me any excuse." Yoruhiru deadpanned.

"I really did!" Akari protested with slightly puffed out cheeks.

"Yeah, and I was riding on that bird monster, didn't you see me?" Yoruhiru rolled his eyes and answered, "If you can't tell me just say so, it's not like I'm going to force you to tell me."

"It was a training session with someone watching over me." Akari sighed and admitted, this was as much information as she was able to give Yoruhiru. Even though Yoruhiru said that she didn't have to tell him, it would still leave a seed of distrust in their partnership making it ten times harder for her to gain Yoruhiru's trust in the future. And that was not something Akari wanted.

"From dusk?" Yoruhiru wondered, "Why would they let you train with a high tier beast? That's stupid."

"I was just really unlucky." Akari shook her head, "I can't tell you more Hiru, please?"

"…Fine." Yoruhiru sighed, "It's pretty late already and you're injured, so we can't do a mission anymore, let's get out of here first?"

"Alright." Akari nodded and followed him.

* * *

Nagisa stopped on a flat roof in the suburbs and laid down with Akari right behind him and doing the same. He was sure that 90% of what Akari had told him was the truth now, he could tell that it was hard for her to get out of the well.

"Isn't that the same rooftop as last time?" Akari wondered after pulling her legs closer to her body.

"Is it?" Nagisa wondered and looked around, "Well it's a nice rooftop." he shrugged casually.

"So what did you want to talk about?" Akari let out a silent chuckle and asked Nagisa.

"I have acquired information about someone who might be involved in the slave business." Nagisa went straight to the point, "Jeremiah Larson, got silently promoted from an Earl straight to a Duke a while ago. I've looked into it a bit and nothing major has happened recently, at least not big enough to justify such a promotion."

"I've heard of something similar, that some earl has been promoted from Earl to Duke. I'm not sure if we're talking about the same person but I heard that his son was called… uhm… Raphael?" Akari was slightly surprised that Nagisa had acquired similar information.

"It's the same person then, Raphael Larson, a former student of the dawn academy, currently grounded in the Duke's mansion as punishment." Nagisa nodded and confirmed.

"Former?" Akari frowned in confusion. "Where do you get all this information from?"

"It was only by chance." Nagisa just shrugged, "But yeah, that's pretty much all I got. Is it possible to have someone from the dusk look into this? It'll be a lot easier if you could get help from the dusk's information network."

"Hmm, that'd be nice but I can't do that." Akari smiled bitterly and answered.

"Why's that? Aren't you the princess of the dusk?" Nagisa wondered, he was certain that Akari had access to the information network.

"I'm being grounded, remember?" Akari reminded Nagisa of the reason she was here.

"Right… guess we'll have to do it ourselves then. I'll try to get an infiltration mission into the duke's mansion onto the mission board." Nagisa nodded, "We still need a way to contact each other though."

"I got this covered already." Akari suddenly summoned two weird looking devices out of her scale. "Hiru?" Akari realized that Nagisa was spacing out and staring at her right hand when she looked back up again.

Seeing how Akari took something out of her scale again, Nagisa suddenly remembered that he had reached the third stage as well now. He hadn't had that feeling of having a room in his scale Akari talked about yet, but he had never tried either!

"Hiru?" Akari called him again, but a lot louder this time.

"O-oh yeah. What is that?" Nagisa grabbed the device that was handed to him and asked a bit embarrassed.

"I'll show you, here put this in that slot first." Akari handed him a small dark green crystal that had the same shape as the slot on the weird device Akari had given him.

"What's that?" Nagisa took the crystal and observed it with awe.

"It's a memory crystal." Akari explained, "It can read and store mana or aura sequences. This one has mine in it."

"Okay?" Nagisa didn't understand the point entirely but still followed Akari's orders and put the crystal onto the device, "And now?"

"Give me a second," Akari said while pressing some buttons on her own device and then charging it with her mana.

"What are you…?" Nagisa was about to ask her after waiting for a few seconds but then felt a weird sensation coming from the device he was holding. The dark green crystal started to glow while words started to appear on the screen on the device.

 ** _Can you read?_**

"Yes, I can read, thank you very much." Nagisa deadpanned while still observing the device with interest.

"Hehe, this device is what we call a sequence receiver." Akari explained, "The crystal I gave you allows the device to recognize my mana sequence and receive it, while the device helps you to form your mana or aura into messages before sending it out, these are really rare even among the core members of the dusk." Akari said slightly showing off, "Technically the sending part isn't necessary, but takes too much time and control to do that manually."

"That's interesting." Nagisa nodded while Akari took out another memory crystal out of her scale.

"You try it now, but you have to give me your aura sequence first." Akari gave him the empty memory crystal.

"My aura sequence?" Nagisa blanked out for a second. He had no idea how sequences worked and if his first **Unique Skill** changed it as well. Because if it didn't, Nagisa's aura sequence would be dark grey and thus revealing him as the shadow dragon. But not giving Akari his sequence now would be a huge sign of distrust and it would definitely hurt her feelings after she went all the way to get these devices.

 _\- What gives… I'll just join the dusk if I'm revealed. –_

Nagisa let out a sigh after deciding what to do. He quickly grabbed the crystal and started to send his aura into it after changing the nature of his aura into the one of water.

With his heart almost pounding out of his chest, Nagisa let out a huge sigh of relief when a dull blueish color appeared on the crystal. "Here you go." Nagisa handed the crystal back to Akari while quickly making the sweat on his palm condense with the **Unique Skill** of his water scale.

"Alright, now type in a message and charge the device with your aura." Akari urged Nagisa not realizing that she was being weirdly cheery, she was drawn into the atmosphere of trying out a new toy with someone she could maybe consider a friend. It was feeling she hadn't had since she was branded as a genius with the age of 6.

"Okay." Nagisa nodded, thought about a message and quickly moved his fingers above the keys with a smirk on his face. "And there, done," Nagisa said after finishing charging the device with his changed aura.

"Alright, let's see…" Akari quickly held up the device but the slightly excited expression on her face quickly changed when she read the message, but it was not the reaction Nagisa had expected.

"Princess?" Nagisa got slightly worried seeing that Akari wasn't reacting at all.

"I gotta go now, just send me a message when you put up the mission." Akari's voice suddenly turned into one of panic and confusion as she stood up and turned around to leave.

"Hey, relax princess, it was just a joke." Nagisa tried to stop her but she was already gone when he finished his sentence. This left Nagisa with a bad taste in his mouth, but it also confused the living hell out of Nagisa.

"What's with that?" Nagisa frowned while looking back at his own device where his message was still displayed.

 ** _So you do know how to relax._**

* * *

 **New chapter :D slightly longer than usual too. While writing this chapter I wasn't sure if I'm getting everything I'm trying to express across with my words :/ it's been a while since I had this, but I felt like my skill to write was not enough to completely get everything I had in my mind across.**

 **So you probably noticed that I'm switching back and forth with the names of Nagisa/Yoruhiru and Kaede/Akari. And some of you maybe even noticed that Kaede/Akari refers to herself as both Kaede and Akari in her POV depending on which identity she's taking, while Nagisa only refers to himself as Nagisa in his POV.**

 **This is not a mistake, but something I made on purpose. Remember back in chapter 10 (though it's probably more than a year ago by now) Nagisa had asked Akari if that was her real name or just a codename and she had answered "Honestly? I don't even know myself anymore."? That's the reason why I'm writing it like this, and as for the reason why Kaede/Akari said this, you'll have to wait till the story gets there. :D**

 **But yeah, I still think I did the best I could there :S, hope you guys enjoyed the chapter, tell me how you liked it in the reviews and I'll see you in the next chapter! ;)**


	21. Chapter 20

Kaede threw herself onto her bed after sneaking back into the academy while her eyes were still filled with confusion. She genuinely had fun when she was playing with the sequence receiver with Yoruhiru. And she wouldn't even have realized if it wasn't for Yoruhiru's message. That realization scared her.

Everything she did in the two years was to train, train and train. She did so many things that she would've never thought of doing, so many things that made her feel awful just for a single reason, what had happened to Nagisa. She couldn't exactly tell what her feeling was, hatred? Regret? Sadness? Guilt? Maybe even all of them? But no matter what that feeling was, it was the one thing that kept her going.

She finally stopped resisting and started to officially train under her grandfather. She followed his plan and joined the dusk, killed her first animal, then magical beast and then human. Even though she still felt like someone was squeezing her heart when she did these things, she had convinced herself that she would get used to it, that she had to get used to it. That if she gave up now, her feelings towards her brother would start to fade away.

So she kept forcing herself to do things she didn't want to do, she didn't allow her to get sidetracked, she just kept focusing on her main goal, to make the entire slave market collapse. To make every single person who was responsible for what happened 2 years ago pay.

And that's exactly what she did the entire two years. There wasn't a single second where that goal wasn't on her mind. But that wasn't the case when she was playing around with the sequence receiver today. Even though it was only for a short amount of time, at that moment she was just having fun with her entire guard down.

"Nagisa…" Kaede quietly started to mutter her brother's name while tears started to roll down her cheek, "Nagisa…" she just kept repeating his name and cried, "I'm sorry… I miss you…" and she just kept going until she got too tired and fell asleep.

* * *

Nagisa went back into his room with a bitter taste in his mouth. Did he go too far with that joke? Honestly, he didn't think so. Considering how well Akari had been taking his more sassy side up till now, this little jab shouldn't have caused such a huge reaction. He probably just hit the wrong nerve without even realizing it. "This sucks…" Nagisa sighed as he changed into his pajamas and turned his appearance back.

Realizing that he wouldn't be able to sleep anyway, Nagisa decided to pick the habit of meditating instead of sleeping back up.

After making sure that his room was completely darkened, Nagisa locked his door and sat down on his bed and closed his eyes. But as soon as he did that, Nagisa suddenly felt how his aura started to leak out of his pool and into his body. He was having another breakthrough, but this time as a combatant and only a small breakthrough from 1-star to 2-star.

"Hrgn…" Nagisa grit his teeth as his aura ruthlessly started to fill his entire body. Veins started to appear on his body as his body became tenser and tenser. This was the major difference between the breakthrough of a combatant and a mage.

While a mage had to bear a heavy burden on his mind by suppressing his mana pool while it was expanding, a combatant had to endure the numbing pain of his aura refining his entire body. But as someone who did even the stage breakthroughs on his own, this amount of pain was not really a challenge for Nagisa.

Finishing his breakthrough in a ridiculously easy manner, Nagisa opened his eyes again only to see his entire body covered in sweat and a black sticky substance that was removed from his body through the refinement.

"… And I just took a shower." Nagisa grimaced as he removed his clothes and went back into the bathroom. The pajamas needed to be washed for sure and the same went for his bed wear.

With a long sigh, Nagisa quickly removed his bedsheet as well and piled it together with his pajamas. Nagisa then quickly went to the bathroom to fetch some water and mixed some soap in.

Using that water, Nagisa formed a huge water ball with his mana and threw all his dirty clothes into it. With a quick flick of his hand, the water inside the ball started spinning along with all the clothes inside it.

After the entire water ball had become slightly cloudy and dirty, Nagisa removed the now clean clothes from the water ball after removing all the moisture from the fabric. After sending the massive water ball out of his balcony, Nagisa condensed the entire water ball with his **Unique Skill** _Status control_ and went into the bathroom to take another shower.

Theoretically, Nagisa could just clean his entire body with a similar method, but it was tiring and as someone with an elemental compatibility of 91, Nagisa welcomed any contact with water.

After coming back out of the shower, Nagisa quickly put his now clean pajamas and bedsheet back on and sat down on his bed again. However, this time he didn't start meditating straight away. Instead, he started to summon some of his aura to the palm of his hand. The density of his aura had increased with his breakthrough and along with that his physical abilities.

After trying it out a bit more and getting a hang of his increased power, Nagisa went back to meditating with a small nod and closed his eyes again.

The next morning, Nagisa was walking around the mansion with a disturbed look on his face. Since Karasuma told him to join their training today, he got himself ready quite early before he went back to meditating. But when the sun was already hanging high in the sky and Karma still didn't come to pick him up, Nagisa decided to get up and look for him.

But after checking every single room in the mansion, Nagisa could say for sure that Karma wasn't there. And considering the fact that Karma wasn't back yet when he came back at almost 1 o'clock in the morning, Nagisa could safely assume that he didn't come back at all.

"Well… guess I just have to wait." the edge of Nagisa's mouth twitched a little as he started to make himself some breakfast with some ingredients that were in the fridge. Nagisa wasn't very good at cooking, but he had learned a bit from watching Kagero for 2 years. Now that Nagisa had tried other foods, he was sure that Kagero was incredibly good at cooking. The dishes he made, even when he didn't have a lot of spices and ingredients, were even better than the ones they sell in the capital.

Just when Nagisa had finished his meal and washed the dishes, he heard someone knock at the door. "Finally," Nagisa muttered to himself as he started to walk towards the door.

"Hello? Who's there?" Nagisa asked as his hand had reached the handle of the door.

"Good morning, vice principal Karasuma has sent me to get Akabane-san's roommate?" instead of what Nagisa had expected, a girl's voice came from the other side of the door.

"Oh, sorry for the wait." Nagisa quickly opened the door, "Hello, I'm Karma's roommate, Shio…" Nagisa's introduction abruptly stopped when the door was completely opened and a girl with green hair tied into a ponytail appeared on the other side of the door.

"Hmm? I'm sorry I didn't catch tha…" the girl who was looking at the ground looked up realizing that the voice talking to her had suddenly stopped and wanted to ask but just like Nagisa, her words got stuck in her throat as her entire body froze.

Both of them simply stood there while staring into each other's eyes without even blinking, completely lost in thoughts.

"I-I'm sorry I think I got the wrong door." the girl said with a panicking voice and turned around and ran as if she was trying to escape from something.

"Huh? Hey, hey wait!" Nagisa only came back to his mind when the girl was already quite a distance away and started chased after her.

* * *

Kaede was losing it, she was sure of it.

After she had had her mental breakdown yesterday, she had woken up this morning feeling awful and exhausted. Even though she had fallen asleep almost instantly and had woken up quite late as well, she had dreamed of the same nightmare she hadn't had for more than a year now.

In her dream, the scene of Nagisa disappearing behind the cliff just kept repeating itself no matter what she tried to do. It was like as if she had lost control over her body. She couldn't turn her head away or even close her eyes while the entire scene just played in front of her in slow motion.

She could see every single change of expression on Nagisa's face, down to the smallest detail. A relieved smile after seeing that she made it to the other side safely that slowly turned into a sad doting smile and finally after he had closed his eyes into acceptance.

But the fact that there wasn't the slightest hint of negativity towards her in Nagisa's expression, made it so much worse for Kaede to watch this over and over again.

After quickly taking a shower, brushing her teeth and putting on her light green school uniform and black skirt. Kaede had made herself on the way to the school gate after she had grabbed an apple from her kitchen. Karasuma had told her that they would be back at around 10 o'clock and it had only been 10 minutes till that time.

She had then met up with them at the school gate and was asked if she could go and pick up Karma's roommate for Karma since Karasuma had needed Karma for some preparations.

And now she was here, turning around and running aimlessly while her mind was an entire mess. She was losing it again. The dreams were coming back again, and she was seeing Nagisa everywhere she went again. Just like back then when her grandfather had just found her in the mountains and had brought her to the dusk.

She had been overjoyed the first few times Nagisa had shown up in her delusions, only to have her hopes ruthlessly crushed by reality only a few seconds later. And after she had repeatedly felt the roller-coaster of joy, relieve and despair, this had turned into a trauma for Kaede. She had started screaming and running every time Nagisa had shown up in her eyes and this had continued for months before she had gotten over it.

"Huh? Hey, hey wait!" Kaede heard the familiar voice call behind her. Her symptoms were getting worse. In the past, at least her delusions had never spoken to her.

"Go away, please!" Kaede screamed out of terror as she kept running, she could sense that the "Nagisa" was still following her.

"Wait! Why are you running?" the voice kept chasing her, she had never had an illusion that lasted that long before.

"Leave me alone!" Kaede screamed desperately, this was getting too realistic, but Kaede was too scared to turn around and take a look, she was too scared that this "Nagisa" would just disappear like all the other ones before.

This time the voice didn't answer her, but she could still hear his footsteps following her, but they were getting further and further away and then finally disappeared.

 _\- It's just an illusion after all… -_

Kaede thought relieved but also sad when she suddenly lost her footing as she slipped on something. She subconsciously closed her eyes as the ground came closer to her face, but she did notice that the ground was glittering in a strange way.

* * *

Nagisa was starting to gasp for air while chasing after the girl that seemed just too familiar. Asking himself Nagisa would say that there was no way he would mistake someone else for Kaede, but the way the girl was reacting had put some doubts in his mind. Nevertheless, he had to make sure that he was mistaken before he would give up.

There was one major issue though. The girl was faster than him. Nagisa would love to use his _Shadow Walk,_ but it was a cloudless day and the sun was hanging right above their heads so that there were no shadows Nagisa could use.

Luckily for him, the girl that resembled his long lost sister so much was simply aimlessly sprinting down the road and there was going to be a U-turn right ahead.

Throwing a slightly hesitant look to his side, Nagisa grit his teeth and took a sharp turn straight into the bush full of thorns while using some of his aura to clear his way and shield himself from the thorns coming from all sides.

Needlessly to say, the girl was insanely fast. When Nagisa came out of the bushes, he could barely see her running right past him.

Realizing that there was no way he could catch up to her by normal means, Nagisa rapidly lifted his right hand as he was stumbling out of the bushes and muttered a spell he just recently learned _Bullet Rain_.

As soon as he had finished chanting the spell, fist-sized water drops shot out of his bare hands, but instead of aiming at the girl, the bullets flew right past her and landed right in front of her feet, _Status Control, Freeze!_ Nagisa chained his **Unique Skill** right after creating an extremely thin layer of ice on the girls footing.

And just as Nagisa had expected, the girl who was barely paying any attention to her surroundings, slipped on the ice he had created.

Putting all of his strength into one leg, Nagisa made a huge leap towards the girl and barely managed to catch her before she fell head first onto the ground. They still slit quite the distance because of the layer of ice Nagisa had created on the ground though.

"H-hey, are you alright?" Nagisa groaned a bit at the impact but quickly turned his gaze towards the girl in his arms, it was Kaede, there was no doubt about it unless she somehow had a twin sister she had never told him about but considering how she reacted when he became her big brother, Nagisa highly doubted it.

"You're… still here?" the girl asked in a shivering voice while she slowly lifted her head to meet Nagisa's eyes, the look had a conflicting mix of hope and terror, her hand was slowly reaching for his face but stopped right before she touched it as it started to tremble.

"Kaede, it's me." Nagisa said gently as his own voice started to shiver as well, "It's me."

"N-Nagisa?" Kaede stared at him unsurely as she slowly moved her hand away from his face and to his shirt, "Please don't disappear, please don't disappear… please... don't do this to me." Nagisa could barely hear her whisper to herself as she shut her eyes tightly and used both her hands to grab onto his shirt as tightly as she could.

If Nagisa still couldn't figure out what was happening to Kaede, he would be an idiot. His heart started to ache to see Kaede like this. Letting out a sigh Nagisa gently placed his arms around her, held her as tightly as he could and placed his forehead on hers. "I'm not going anywhere, it's me Kaede, I'm real."

"You're alive… I-I thought you…" Kaede tried to say something but she just started to bawl her eyes out and just chocked on her own words.

"Shh… it's alright now, I'm fine." Nagisa tried to stroke her back but his own hand was shivering so hard that he could barely move it.

"N-no, you don't… you don't understand… i-if I hadn't… then you wou-wouldn't … I…" Kaede just kept shaking her head and tried to explain something while her sentences were just cut off from her sobbing.

"It's alright… I'm here now. I'm sorry for leaving you alone." Nagisa took a deep breath and whispered to comfort Kaede. Even though he felt like crying himself, right now he had to pull himself together so he could be her mental support. Because that is what it meant to be a big brother.

 **New chapter :D they finally meet! Some of you have been pointing out that characters are starting to get OOC, and yes, I am very aware of that. I think I've said that before, but this is an AU story, I mean I could probably even count this as an original story if not for the main character appearances and names.**

 **I've tried my best to keep their starting nature as close to the original source as possible, but as the story progresses they will start to drift away from that. They will have different experiences and hardships than in the original and therefore develop differently.**

 **If some of you don't like this because it's not really the characters you fell in love with from the anime or manga anymore, I completely understand. Maybe check out my other stories, they stick more to the original than this one. (I'm very sorry, I will find time to update them when I finish this arc, especially Last Assassination)**

 **All in all, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! :D Tell me what you think about it in the reviews, happy Easter! And I'll see you in the next chapter! ;)**


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